I downloaded a big Kali update: September 9th, 2025, last-snapshot.
Today’s Kali Linux update is large because it includes the installation of the recent Kali Linux 2025.2 release, which features a major desktop refresh, numerous new tools, and significant system upgrades that require updating a vast number of related packages and dependencies.
Menu and Desktop Overhaul
The Kali Menu has been redesigned to follow the MITRE ATT&CK framework, affecting many package dependencies and user-experience components.
Desktop Environment Upgrades
GNOME has been updated to 48 (with notification stacking, HDR, VPN IP indicator), KDE Plasma moved to 6.3, and Xfce remains but also received maintenance updates. This triggers many GUI and system support package upgrades.
Kernel and ARM Support
Linux kernel was bumped to 6.12 LTS, which demands recompilation and update of hardware drivers and system utilities.
As a side note, Kali also maintains a “last snapshot” repository, which is basically a frozen copy of the repo at a specific point in time. The most recent snapshot was taken on September 9th, 2025, so that’s what I hit this week.
If you point your system to it, you’ll always get that exact set of packages without surprises from new updates. It’s mainly useful for stability or reproducibility if you want to avoid unexpected rolling changes.
The only thing that’s off, is my Google Drive connection in Nautilus is broken. Working on solving that.
