The last 12 Months (2019/2020) & Looking Forwards (2021)
Published: 2023-08-21 21:13:19

---
title: The last 12 Months (2019/2020) & Looking Forwards (2021)
published: true
date: 2020-12-22 00:00:00 UTC
tags: 
canonical_url: https://www.kali.org/blog/2019-2020-review-onwards-with-2021/
---

As the end of the year is coming up _(some may say not quickly enough)_, we want to take a few minutes and recap on our [roadmap 2019/2020 post](https://dev.to/mohammadtaseenkhan/kali-linux-roadmap-20192020-4pi3-temp-slug-9611446).

At a higher level, the last 12 months of Kali Linux _(outside of the normal release items - e.g. packages updates)_, Kali has had various refreshes, switches and additional new features added.

Looking a little deeper:

- There has been a lot of **graphical & visual changes** (e.g. desktop environments & shells refreshes)
- With a few “under-the-hood” **core system changes** (e.g. switching to non-root & default shell)
- With a sprinkle of **end-user experience** improvements (e.g. new system images & message at login)
- We have also been altering and tweaking the **back end infrastructure** _(just not been talking about it publicly in release notes)_
- We have also introduced various **new features** (e.g Kali-undercover & Win-KeX)
- Added support for **new platforms** & improved current ones (e.g. Vagrant, AWS, ARM & NetHunter)
- _We understand not everyone has liked the Python 2 tool removal, but it was necessary and did to help **future proof Kali**. We know this is a painful process, deep change like this always is. But it will only get easier as time goes by and more tools update_

Breaking it down on a per Kali release, the **feature highlights** from each release:

- [Kali 2019.4](https://dev.to/mohammadtaseenkhan/kali-linux-20194-release-xfce-gnome-gtk3-kali-undercover-kali-docs-kex-powershell-public-packaging-4oj-temp-slug-6346521) (November 2019)

- [Kali 2020.1](https://dev.to/mohammadtaseenkhan/kali-linux-20201-release-non-root-single-installer-nethunter-rootless-2dee-temp-slug-9904100) (February 2020)

- [Kali 2020.2](https://dev.to/mohammadtaseenkhan/kali-linux-20202-release-kde-powershell-4k53-temp-slug-4488055) (May 2020)

- [Kali 2020.3](https://dev.to/mohammadtaseenkhan/kali-linux-20203-release-zsh-win-kex-hidpi-bluetooth-arsenal-3e0f-temp-slug-5229290) (August 2020)

- [Kali 2020.4](https://dev.to/mohammadtaseenkhan/kali-linux-20204-release-zsh-bash-cme-motd-aws-docs-win-kex-vagrant-3ie-temp-slug-2144147) (November 2020)

It goes without saying, that over the year we have updated countless amount of tools, as well as introduced 120 new ones. We also added more support for ARM & [NetHunter devices](https://nethunter.kali.org/kernel-stats.html). ARM we have a new 3 [build scripts](https://gitlab.com/kalilinux/build-scripts/kali-arm) and 1 new [pre-generated images](https://www.kali.org/get-kali/#kali-arm). With Kali NetHunter we have:

- [13](https://nethunter.kali.org/images.html) new [devices](https://gitlab.com/kalilinux/nethunter/build-scripts/kali-nethunter-devices) (25% more)
- [20](https://nethunter.kali.org/kernels.html) new [kernels](https://gitlab.com/kalilinux/nethunter/build-scripts/kali-nethunter-kernel) (14% more)
- 9 new [pre-generated images](https://www.kali.org/get-kali/#kali-mobile) plus 2 generic images (50% more)

That’s looking back on 2019 & 2020. But what does it look like looking forward to 2021?

- 2019/2020 was a focus on the interface of Kali. 2021 is going to be more tool focused
- The only thing we didn’t manage was to port over kali.org/tools/ to markdown - so that’s still on the cards
- Speaking of websites, we are going to be giving our website a face lift
- The release of “Kaboxer” - a project we have been working on for the last 18 months
- We are hoping to do an online event, aiming for August - more details about that in Kali 2021.2
- Giving a make over to the community support (forums and real time chat)
- Improving the bug tracker

We hope to get to as many of those items as we can, as well as a few other things that we have up our sleeves. With that all said, see you for Kali 2021.1, which we are planning on [releasing](https://www.kali.org/releases/) a little later next year _(currently penciled in for a Tuesday in February 2021)_.