Butterbian XFCE

Debian 13 . XFCE . BTRFS + Timeshift -- configured from day one.

Most distros leave BTRFS and Timeshift as an exercise for the user. Butterbian does it for you -- subvolumes laid out correctly, Timeshift configured, grub-btrfs wired in, so you can roll back from GRUB if it all goes sideways.

Every apt install, apt upgrade, and apt remove automatically creates a snapshot first. On top of that, Timeshift keeps weekly and monthly snapshots on its own schedule. If an update breaks something, reboot, pick a snapshot from GRUB, and you're back to a working system in seconds.

Features

• Debian 13 (Trixie) base -- stable, no surprises
• BTRFS filesystem with pre-configured subvolumes
• Timeshift configured and ready on first boot
• grub-btrfs -- roll back from the GRUB menu
• Automatic snapshot before every apt/dpkg operation
• zram swap -- compressed in-memory swap, no swap partition needed
• Offline installation -- no internet required during install
• XFCE desktop -- fast, stays out of your way
• Hardened Firefox-ESR -- Betterfox baseline, uBlock Origin preinstalled, telemetry off, post-quantum TLS, first-run welcome page with shortcuts
• butterbash -- custom bash configuration included

Theming

• MacTahoe GTK theme -- polished macOS-inspired look
• MacTahoe icon theme -- matching icons and cursors
• Nerd Fonts -- JetBrainsMono, FiraCode, CascadiaCode, and more
• Customized xfce4-terminal and xfce4-panel -- tuned out of the box
• Four terminal color schemes included: Catppuccin Mocha, Rose Pine, GitHub Dark, Tokyo Night

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Super+Return	Terminal
Super+F	File manager
Super+Q	Close window
Super+Space	Application finder
Super+S	Screenshot (full screen)
Shift+Super+S	Screenshot (region)
Alt+Super+S	Screenshot (active window)
Super+1 through 0	Switch to workspace 1-10
Shift+Super+1 through 0	Move window to workspace 1-10
Super+Arrow keys	Tile window to half screen
Ctrl+Alt+L	Lock screen

Subvolume Layout

Butterbian splits the filesystem into BTRFS subvolumes so snapshots cover what you want rolled back and skip what you don't:

Subvolume	Mount Point	Purpose
@	/	Root filesystem
@home	/home	User data
@var_log	/var/log	Excluded from snapshots
@var_cache	/var/cache	Excluded from snapshots
@var_tmp	/var/tmp	Excluded from snapshots

@var_log, @var_cache, and @var_tmp are separate subvolumes so logs, package caches, and temp files stay out of your snapshots automatically. No cruft in your rollbacks, and snapshots stay small.

Where snapshots live

Timeshift stores its snapshots at the top of the BTRFS filesystem under timeshift-btrfs/snapshots/ — created and managed for you, no setup needed. Browse them in the Timeshift GUI, or pick one straight from the GRUB menu when you need to roll back.

A snapshot is taken automatically before every apt install, apt upgrade, and apt remove, alongside Timeshift's own scheduled snapshots — 8 weekly and 12 monthly by default. Apt-triggered snapshots stick around alongside the scheduled ones; if you ever want to clear out old rollbacks, the Timeshift GUI handles it in a few clicks.

If you've used Snapper on openSUSE or Arch, you might expect a @snapshots subvolume mounted at /.snapshots. Timeshift doesn't work that way — it manages its own location at the filesystem root. There's no separate snapshot subvolume to think about.

Requirements

• UEFI firmware -- legacy BIOS-only systems are not supported
• 64-bit (amd64) CPU
• 4 GB RAM minimum
• 20 GB disk space

Download

get.butterbian.org

More info at butterbian.org.

Building from Source

Requires a Debian-based system with live-build installed.

sudo apt install live-build
sudo bash build.sh

Output: butterbian-xfce-<version>-trixie-<YYYYMMDD>.iso in the project root.

Part of the butter* Ecosystem

Butterbian is a JustAGuyLinux project, alongside butterscripts, butterbash, butternotes, buttertodo, and butterrepo.

Support

Connect

• YouTube — tutorials and guides
• Butterforge — source code and projects
• The Butter Lab — Discourse forum
• The Churn — community chat (Fluxer)
• Wiki — documentation and guides
• Mastodon — @justaguylinux@fosstodon.org
• Butterbian — project home