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Drew edited this page 2026-08-04 19:49:55 -04:00
butterknife
A terminal-based installer for Debian 13 (Trixie). Boot the ISO, answer a few questions, pick a window manager on first login. No live desktop, no graphical installer.
Source repository: justaguy.dev/drew/butterknife
Part of the Butterbian family. Sister project: Butterbian-XFCE, the full desktop ISO.
What's in the box
| Feature | What it does |
|---|---|
| TUI installer | archinstall-style menu, arrow keys, info panel per option |
| btrfs snapshot stack | Timeshift + grub-btrfs, snapshot before every apt transaction, bootable from GRUB |
| Filesystem choice | ext4, btrfs, or xfs |
| LUKS encryption | full-disk encryption on any of the three filesystems |
| zram swap | compressed swap in RAM, no swap partition |
| Offline install | base system from a bundled tarball, no network needed |
| WM chooser | first-login menu: 8 window managers, full desktops, optional tools |
| Chroot recovery | mount and repair an existing install from the live ISO |
Quick start
Download the ISO from butterbian.org, write it to a USB stick, and boot it. The installer starts on its own.
One thing to know before you start: butterknife erases the whole target disk. There is no dual-boot and no manual partitioning.
Read next
- Install — every screen and what each choice does
- Filesystems and Snapshots — ext4 vs xfs vs btrfs, LUKS, rollbacks
- WM Chooser — what happens on first login
- Chroot Recovery — repair an install that won't boot
- Troubleshooting — known issues, fix-in-place recipes
- Building — build your own ISO
License & support
GPL-2.0. Source on Butterforge.