Reasoning

Why Debian?

30+ years of stability. No corporate agenda. The universal base.

Ubuntu, Mint, Pop, Kali — all downstream of Debian. We go to the source.

Rolling releases (Arch) break. Debian doesn't. Stability is a feature.

Why Our Own Installer?

Calamares pulls 1.4GB of KDE/Qt dependencies. The Debian installer looks like 1998.

We built a whiptail TUI: Catppuccin-themed, ~0 bytes overhead, supports dual-boot, LUKS encryption, and three install modes.

The installer is a bash script. It uses debootstrap, parted, cryptsetup, and grub. All standard Debian tools. No custom binaries.

Why Three Modes?

Desktop: Sway + fuzzel + kitty + audio. On first login, choose Base (tiling) or Desktop (familiar with file manager, screenshots, etc).

Secure Server: SSH + UFW firewall + fail2ban + monitoring. Hardened out of the box.

Bare Server: SSH + pure Debian. Nothing else. You build what you need.

One ISO. Three outcomes. No wasted packages.

Why Sway + fuzzel + NetworkManager?

Sway: i3-compatible, Wayland-native, stable. No GNOME bloat. No KDE complexity.

fuzzel: One binary. App launcher + settings menu. The user's interface to everything.

NetworkManager: Universal connectivity. WiFi setup from within fuzzel.

All three are written in C, minimal, and fast. No JavaScript overhead. No Python startup lag. This is the 3-package math that equals a 16MB base desktop.

Why One ISO?

Most distros provide 20+ ISOs (Desktop, Server, Minimal, etc). We provide one. ~800MB.

The installer asks: Desktop or Server? Desktop installs the GUI stack. Server installs SSH and optionally hardens. Both use debootstrap — clean install, zero leftovers from the live session.

Smaller than Arch. Smaller than Ubuntu. Smaller than Fedora. With a prettier installer than all of them.

Why gtkgreet + gtklock?

gtkgreet: GTK3 greeter for greetd, running inside cage. Auto-remembers last user. Custom CSS — minimal, themed to match.

gtklock: Lock screen with custom CSS. Same aesthetic. Minimal, matches the theme.

No GDM. No SDDM. No LightDM. Two tiny GTK apps that do one thing each.

Why a Custom Status Bar?

Waybar and polybar fork 10-20 processes per second. We wrote a pure bash status bar.

It reads /sys and /proc directly — zero forks for brightness, battery, memory, GPU. One fork every 5 seconds for volume (wpctl). One fork every 30 seconds for disk (df).

Auto-detects hardware at startup: backlight, battery, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPU type. Shows only what exists. Bluetooth icon hidden when off.

~0.1% CPU. 234 lines of bash.

Why Dual-Boot?

Anti-cheat games don't work on Linux. Some software requires Windows.

The installer detects Windows, offers "Install alongside" — shrinks the NTFS partition, creates Tebian partitions, sets up GRUB with os-prober. Safe, guided, reversible.

Not emulation — native Windows when you need it.

Why LUKS Encryption?

Laptops get stolen. Disks get sold. Encryption should be one checkbox, not a 40-step guide.

The installer offers it as a yes/no. Sets up crypttab, initramfs, GRUB — all automatic. Enter a passphrase at boot. Done.

Why One Folder?

~/Tebian/ contains everything Tebian-specific.

Delete it = pure Debian. Keep it = working desktop.

No scattered config. No hidden hooks. One folder, one undo command.

Why No Repo?

We don't fork packages. We don't patch software.

Debian maintains 50,000 packages. We maintain one script.

Updates come from Debian. Security comes from Debian. We ride for free.

Why No Docs/Manual?

The system is the manual.

One question at boot. Everything else is fuzzel. Keybinds shown in-menu.

If you need a manual, the system is too complex.

Why macOS VM?

iOS development requires Xcode. Xcode requires macOS.

One-click OSX-KVM setup: USB passthrough, shared folders, iCloud valid.

No second machine. No Hackintosh. Just a VM when you need it.

Why Waydroid?

Android apps on desktop. Containerized, not emulated.

Run phone apps in a window. Same experience, bigger screen.

Why The Fleet?

One config across PC, Pi, server, phone.

T-Link connects them (Tailscale mesh). T-Sync keeps configs aligned.

Your OS isn't a machine — it's a fleet.

Why Local AI?

Ollama runs Llama, Mistral, etc. on your hardware.

No API keys. No cloud. No data leaving your machine.

AI is a tool for empowerment, not surveillance.

Why Stealth Glass?

The default theme is Glass — catppuccin mocha with blur. Bar visible, minimal, informational.

Want less? Switch to Minimal feel — bar goes invisible, hold Super to peek. The screen belongs to your work.

11 themes. 3 feels. All switchable from the fuzzel menu in seconds.

Why The Mothership?

Self-hosted cloud: Syncthing (files), Vaultwarden (passwords), Matrix (chat).

If it's on someone else's computer, it isn't yours.

Why Kill 200 Distros?

Most distros are: base + packages + theme + branding.

That's not a distro. That's a post-install script with a logo.

Tebian exposes this. We're honest about what we are.

Why Keep 3 Survivors?

Only three distros do something Tebian can't:

• Alpine: musl, 5MB containers, embedded. Different base entirely.
• Tails: Amnesic, RAM-only. Power off = zero trace. True deniability.
• Proxmox: Datacenter hypervisor. 100s of VMs, clustering, HA.

Everything else is Debian with extra steps. We respect genuine difference. We kill redundancy.

Why Server = Pure Debian?

Server users don't need a desktop. The installer uses debootstrap — only server packages touch the disk.

Bare Server: SSH + standard system utilities. You build the rest.

Secure Server: SSH + UFW + fail2ban + monitoring. Production-ready in 10 minutes.

No GUI packages installed. No leftover configs. Just Debian.

Why Kill macOS and Windows?

They're not Linux. But Tebian kills them anyway.

macOS: Need Xcode? Run it in a VM. One-click setup. No second machine.

Windows: Anti-cheat games? The installer detects Windows and offers safe dual-boot. Native when you need it, one reboot away.

Don't switch OS. Make them come to you.