It’s the final week of Q2, and Kali Linux 2026.2 is here - right on schedule ;) We have been heads down since our last release, and we are ready to share what we have been working on. This release is a mix of desktop refreshes, infrastructure improvements, and quality-of-life changes that we think you will appreciate.
The summary of the is:
- - Consistency to our little launches at starting services
- - Smaller initrd + faster boot times = happy virtual machine users
- - Staying with 6.19 for now, how to get 7.0 early
- - As always, various new shiny packages have been added (9!)
Desktop Environments Updates
As we do roughly every six months, every other Kali release, our and .
.
We also make sure that any Kali packages which include a service use <tool>-start/<tool>-stop for their command names.
Hopefully this makes the little things a little easier.
, AMD and Intel GPUs takes almost 300 MB. But what’s even worse: some bits and pieces of these firmware packages need to be loaded very early, and therefore they are also installed in the initrd (note: the initrd, or initramfs, is this “minimal” system that is loaded early on by the kernel at boot time). And lately, the Kali initrd peaked at around 200 MB, mainly due to graphics firmware. What does that mean in practice? A bigger initrd means slower boot time, and can potentially fill up your /boot partition if ever it’s too small.
So we thought we could improve the situation for VM users here: the vast majority probably don’t need graphics firmware, ever. The only use-case we can think of is a VM with a dedicated GPU + GPU passthrough enabled. If you’re in this case, you might need graphics firmware.
So, what changed in practice, you may ask?
- now detect if installation happens in a VM, and in that case graphics firmware is not installed
As a result, the initrd is down to 60 MB for VM users, and the boot time is cut by ~3x (tested for QEMU VM on a Linux host, your mileage may vary). That’s a massive improvement in boot time.
For baremetal users: nothing changed, so you still get a 200 MB initrd with all graphics firmware pre-installed. If you’d like to optimize, it’s on you to uninstall the firmware that you don’t need. A word of caution though: make sure to know what you’re doing, because removing graphics firmware that is needed might leave you with a .
xrdp: a reboot is required
In this Kali release, we updated xrdp and xorgxrdp to the v0.10 series. : you’re an xrdp user, even if you didn’t know it! We did our best to ensure a smooth transition, and yet we got reports that xrdp wasn’t functional after the upgrade. If ever you’re in this case, you can try to run kali-tweaks, and in the Virtualization section you can try to disable, and then enable again the Hyper-V Enhanced Session Mode. That might fix the issue. Don’t forget to reboot!
As always, if you’re still having issues after that, feel free to reach out on the to include in this release of Kali, it’s been a tough decision.
On one hand, we’d like to release with the latest version of the Linux kernel, due to all the recent vulnerability disclosures ( and others ). On the other hand, when the 7.0 kernel reached Debian, there were . At the same time, for those who prefer to get the latest kernel and don’t care about NVidia compatibility, we have the kernel 7.0 ready for you in kali-experimental. Make sure to check our documentation that explains and get the latest packages from are what we use to produce every Kali image - ARM SBCs, Base (Installer and live ISOs), Cloud, Containers, VMs, WSL & NetHunter/Pro. Each lives in its own repo, and over time they have each grown in slightly different directions. For the next release, Kali 2026.3, we are doing a consistency pass across all of them: same structure, same conventions, same behaviour throughout.
As a result of these changes, some CI pipelines or workflows may need tweaking.
New Tools in Kali
This release brings 9 new tools (to the network repositories). As always, we have been busy adding to the arsenal:
- - [Re-added] Very fast network logon cracker - GTK+ based GUI
- - Analyze MS OLE2 files and MS Office documents
- - Command-line productivity tool powered by AI large language models
- - OSINT information gathering tool for finding social media accounts
- .
Kali NetHunter Updates
launches instantly now, various bugs have been fixed with the . A new EvilTwin (Wi-Fi Fake AP) tab has been added with password verification captive portal, which brought along a really needed iptables fix. So now after using . The wave.
The Qcacld3.0 Injection Story
We finally came to a milestone, shout-out to all the developers that worked on injection through the years!
. Then . Finally, is the almost universal one which brought many devices into the injection world, starting with the ones below for both kernel 4.x and 5.x versions:
- (LineageOS 23.2)
- Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC (PixelOS Android 16)
- Xiaomi Redmi Note 8
Wifite On TV
caught some attention - spotted on Netflix twice. Not bad!
Magisk Standalone Kernel Installer
The kernel flasher tab (still experimental on some devices) is back in a new shape, giving a hint for the possible future look for the NetHunter app.
The Magisk standalone kernel flashing support is now here - you can simply open any newly built kernel installer zip in the Magisk app that was built using the :
- Google Pixel 6a (LineageOS 23.2)
- Redmi 5A (crDroid 14)
- Samsung Note 20 Ultra (Android 13)
- :
- Fairphone FP5 (QCM6490) (fp5)
- Google Pixel 3 (SDM845) (blueline)
- Google Pixel 3a (SDM670) (sargo)
- Google Pixel 3a XL SDC panel (SDM670) (bonito-sdc)
- Google Pixel 3a XL Tianma panel (SDM670) (bonito-tianma)
- Google Pixel 4a (SDM730) (sunfish)
- LG G7 ThinQ (SDM845) (judyln)
- LG V35 ThinQ (SDM845) (judyp)
- Samsung Galaxy S9 China (SDM845) (starqltechn)
- SHIFTphone 8 (QCM6490) (otter)
- Sony Xperia 10 III (SM6350) (pdx213)
- Sony Xperia XZ2 (SDM845) (xperia-tama-apollo)
- Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact (SDM845) (xperia-tama-akari)
- Sony Xperia XZ2 Premium (SDM845) (xperia-tama-akatsuki)
- Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite (SM7225) (toco)
- Xiaomi Mi 9 Pro 5G (SM8150) (tucana)
- Xiaomi Mi 9T Pro Samsung panel (SM8150) (davinci-samsung)
- Xiaomi Mi 9T Pro Visionox panel (SM8150) (davinci-visionox)
- Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S (SDM845) (polaris)
- Xiaomi Poco X3 Huaxing panel (SM7150) (surya-huaxing)
- Xiaomi Poco X3 Tianma panel (SM7150) (surya-tianma)
- Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro (SM7150) (sweet)
NetHunter Podcast Episode 3
joined for a discussion about NetHunter in cars, and leveraging AI for Bug Bounty projects and more.
Kali Website Updates
Since our last release, Kali 2026.1, we have been keeping the website and documentation up-to-date. Here is a quick summary of what has changed.
Kali Documentation
Most of the (updated)
- (updated)
- (updated)
- (updated)
- (updated)
- (updated)
We also want to say a little thank you to the following for their work on the sites:
Anyone can help out, anyone can get . It is sponsored by .
Get Kali Linux 2026.2
Fresh Images
So what’s stopping you? Go and which include the latest packages at the time of download, meaning fewer updates needed on first boot. These are automated builds rather than QA’d releases like our standard on them. The earlier we catch issues, the sooner they get fixed.
Existing Installs
Using Kali already? Great! You can !
You should now be on Kali Linux 2026.2. We can double check this by doing:
CONSOLE┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ grep VERSION /etc/os-release
VERSION="2026.2"
VERSION_ID="2026.2"
VERSION_CODENAME="kali-rolling"
┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ uname -v
#1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Kali 6.19.14-1+kali1 (2026-05-05)
┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ uname -r
6.19.14+kali-amd64
NOTE: The output of
uname -rmay be different depending on the system . We will never be able to fix what we do not know is broken! And Social networks are not bug trackers!
Want to keep up-to-date easier? We’ve got you!
- and ? We have a ? , & X
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