ArchAssault

ArchAssault is an open source distribution of Linux based on the Arch Linux operating system and tailored for the needs of security professionals, providing them with extra packages for penetration testing and support for the upstream Arch Linux packages.

An Arch Linux OS distributed as Live DVDs

The distribution can be downloaded via Softoware or from the project's homepage as two Live DVD ISO images of approximately 4-5GB in size each, supporting the 64-bit (amd64) and 32-bit (i386) instruction set architectures.

In addition, the operating system features built-in support for ARMv6h and ARMv7h hardware platforms. The user must burn these ISO images to blank DVD discs or write them on USB flash drives of 4GB or higher capacity in order to boot them from the BIOS of a computer. 

Boot options

The boot loader of the Live DVDs will allow you to start the live environment, boot an existing operating system from the first disk, perform a RAM diagnostic test, view detailed information about the computer's hardware components, reload the ISO image, as well as to shutdown the machine.

Lightweight desktop environment powered by Openbox

The distro's main desktop environment is powered by the lightweight Openbox window manager, which provides users with a traditional graphical desktop interface comprised of a single taskbar located on the bottom edge of the screen, from where you can quickly launch apps and interact with opened programs.

State-of-the-art penetration testing utilities

Among the pre-installed penetration testing utilities, we can mention Argus network flow analyzer, Wireshark network scanner.

Bottom line

Summing up, it appears that ArchAssault tries to become BackTrack, a penetration testing operating system that is now known as Kali Linux. It provides you with a wider range of pentesting utilities and a lighter desktop environment suitable for old and semi-old machines.