Lilidog Linux: Lightweight Debian Power, Your Way

Lilidog is a lightweight, full‑featured GNU/Linux distribution built on Debian stable, with a strong focus on stability, responsiveness and an immediately usable desktop. It uses the Openbox window manager by default, complemented by a carefully curated toolkit designed to make a classic Debian base feel approachable, discoverable and highly customisable without getting in your way. Both its X11 and Wayland editions now track Debian 13 “Trixie”, bringing Lilidog up to date with the current stable Debian platform while keeping its own philosophy of minimal bloat and maximal control.

From the outset, Lilidog positions itself as a distribution that does the “hard parts” of a Debian desktop for you while still leaving room to explore and tinker. It ships with a thoughtfully configured Openbox session, a themed tint2 panel, the Thunar file manager and Xfce4‑terminal, providing a familiar but streamlined experience on both modern and modest hardware. Rather than reinventing the Debian ecosystem, Lilidog leans on the Debian stable repositories for all upgrades, and layers on its own dialogs, scripts and configuration tools to enhance everyday workflows such as theming, package installation and display management.

Although Lilidog is lightweight, it is not deliberately stripped bare in its main build: the project describes the distribution as “full featured”, ready for general desktop use such as web browsing, office work, multimedia and development. For those who prefer to start smaller, the project offers alternative spins including Beardog and Waydog, which reinterpret the same Debian base with different trade‑offs in terms of completeness, display stack and window manager choice. Across all of these, the distribution inherits the Debian focus on long‑term stability while using “no ‑‑recommends” builds so that only the strict dependencies of each package are installed, reducing unwanted extras and leaving users in charge of what lives on their system.

Core Philosophy and Design Choices

Lilidog’s design centres on the idea that a Debian desktop can be both approachable to newcomers and satisfying to experienced users who enjoy control over their environment. By basing itself on Debian stable, Lilidog gains a predictable release cadence, wide package availability and the reputation for robustness that Debian is known for, while its own tooling bridges gaps that a stock Debian installation might leave for users to solve themselves. The distribution explicitly states that it aims to improve the user’s experience by adding dialogs and utilities that are not usually present in a standard Debian install, particularly around configuration and theming.

A key design decision is the use of “no ‑‑recommends” during package installation, meaning the system installs only the required dependencies rather than the broader set of recommended or suggested packages. This keeps the base lean, helps avoid bloat and encourages a deliberate approach to software selection, although users can enable the default recommendation behaviour later if they prefer a more expansive install. The project also enables Debian’s “contrib” and “non‑free” sources by default, signalling a pragmatic stance towards proprietary components where they are needed for hardware support or certain applications.

Despite its technical underpinnings, the distribution is not positioned solely for advanced users. The project notes that Lilidog is suitable for work, gaming and play, and explicitly encourages prospective users to try it in a live session before installing. The live environment has a predictable username and password (“user” and “live”), and the boot menu presents a straightforward choice between running live or launching the Debian installer in either text or graphical mode. This approach gives users a low‑risk way to explore the distribution while keeping installation aligned with Debian’s familiar tooling.

Editions: Lilidog, Beardog and Waydog

Lilidog’s main edition is a full Openbox‑based desktop that “comes with everything necessary to get started”, intended for users who want an out‑of‑the‑box experience without needing to install a long list of everyday applications. This build includes common desktop essentials such as a web browser, office suite, text editor, file manager, multimedia tools and system utilities. For instance, the project lists Firefox, LibreOffice, Geany, Thunar, Xfce4‑terminal, Pragha, Gpicview, Fastfetch, Jgmenu and inxi among the pre‑installed software, reflecting an emphasis on a complete yet carefully curated application set.

Lilidog - inxi - Detailed System Information (TUI)

Beardog offers a contrasting take on the same Debian base, deliberately stripped back to provide a “bare” environment that boots without a display manager. Users log in at the console and can then choose to install one of two LightDM variants from the initial welcome script if they want a graphical login manager. This edition is aimed at those who prefer to build up their environment selectively, benefiting from Lilidog’s scripts and configuration while remaining closer to a handcrafted Debian system. The project describes Beardog as a good way to obtain a lightweight setup with only the features you actually want.

Beardog - Boot Menu - Live System/Installer

Beardog - Initial Login - Installed System

Beardog - Customization - Add LightDM - Y/N

Waydog, meanwhile, brings Lilidog’s philosophy into the Wayland world. Rather than Openbox and X11, this edition uses the Labwc and Sway compositors, with Waybar serving as the panel and Waypaper providing wallpaper management. It also exposes fully customised configurations for additional Wayland window managers such as Niri and Wayfire through its installers, providing a sandbox for experimenting with different Wayland‑centric workflows. The project notes that Waydog is expected to become the primary distribution offered in the future, reflecting the broader Linux ecosystem shift towards Wayland.

Waydog - Boot Menu - Live System/Installer

Despite their differences, all three editions share the same underlying Debian 13 “Trixie” base, along with Lilidog’s overarching emphasis on lightness, customisation and robust defaults. The releases page shows current hybrid ISO images for the Trixie‑based Lilidog, Beardog and Waydog builds, with version numbers encoded as dates in a year‑month‑day format. Users can see the exact build date either through the “Install Date” Conky module after installation or by running a simple command that reads the current build identifier from the filesystem. This visible versioning makes it easy to track which snapshot of the distribution is in use on a given machine.

Everyday Desktop Experience

Once booted into a Lilidog session, users are greeted by an Openbox desktop with a tint2 panel and a “paw” icon that leads to theming and configuration options. The distribution encourages exploration of the “Toggles” section in the menu, where various runtime switches can be enabled or disabled, and the “Install Extras” section, which provides a gateway to additional programs beyond the default selection. The intention is that many common configuration tasks and quality‑of‑life tweaks can be achieved through these front‑end tools rather than forcing users straight into configuration files.

Jgmenu serves as the main application menu in both Lilidog and Beardog, and is itself extensively customisable. Users can adjust and extend the menu through a configuration file referenced in the menu’s configuration section, allowing for menu entries to be added, reordered or modified according to individual workflow.

For quick launching, Lilidog includes both Rofi and Dmenu, mapped to convenient keybindings: one combination pulls up a custom “drun” menu in Rofi, while another calls the full Dmenu, offering different approaches to keyboard‑centric navigation.

The default file manager is Thunar, chosen for its balance of simplicity and extensibility. Lilidog augments Thunar with custom right‑click actions such as “Open as Root”, picture rotation and resizing, and file comparison via Meld, among others. This allows many common administrative or file manipulation tasks to be performed directly from the graphical interface without repeatedly reaching for the terminal.

Xfce4‑terminal is the default terminal emulator, with urxvt also included for those who prefer a more minimalist or highly scriptable terminal.

Power management and system visibility are integrated into the panel and desktop in a way that aims to be both informative and unobtrusive. Xfce4‑power‑manager is accessible through shortcuts associated with the battery icon, with tooltip hints helping users to discover the available actions. The distribution ships with a suite of Conky configurations, accessible via the Conky Chooser in the menu’s “Toggles” section, offering variants such as a simple clock, a full system information display, shortcuts reference, world clock and even fortune or quote‑based panels.

Lilidog - Quick Settings > Conky Options

These Conkys are stored under the user’s configuration directory, making it straightforward to inspect or customise their behaviour.

Theming, Aesthetics and Usability Tools

Visual customisation is prominent in Lilidog’s feature set. The distribution provides custom Openbox and GTK themes, along with matching themes for Geany and Xfce4‑terminal, aiming for a cohesive look across the entire desktop. Fonts are selected with readability and aesthetics in mind: Noto Sans is used for windows, JetBrains Mono for Xfce4‑terminal, and DejaVu fonts for urxvt and Conky. This combination ensures a clear distinction between interface text, code and system overlays while maintaining a consistent visual character.

Wallpapers are managed by Feh, a lightweight but flexible image viewer and wallpaper setter.

Users can place their own images in a dedicated wallpapers directory under their home folder, then use a “Wallpaper Chooser” entry in the menu to switch between them. Thunar’s right‑click menu is extended to include options such as “set as background wallpaper”, rotations and copying images into the wallpapers directory, and there is also a random wallpaper toggle for those who like periodic visual changes. The distribution’s GRUB background changer enables similar personalisation for the bootloader background, shipping with a small set of initial images and allowing users to add more over time.

The “Quick Theme Changer” tool, found under the configuration section of the menu, is designed as a one‑stop gateway for broad desktop theming. A single selection can change the GTK theme, Openbox theme, Geany theme, LightDM appearance, wallpaper, menu and terminal theme all at once, providing an easy way to switch between cohesive theme presets. Beyond these presets, custom colours can be selected for key elements such as the GTK themes, tint2 panel and Conky displays, allowing users to tailor the overall colour scheme to their preferences without manually editing multiple configuration files.

On the compositing side, Picom provides transparency and visual effects. Its configuration file resides in the user’s configuration directory, where parameters such as transparency level, shadow behaviour and other compositor options can be adjusted. Additional ergonomic tools include the Gammy screen colour and brightness controller, accessible via the menu’s toggles and a dedicated keyboard shortcut, allowing users to adapt the screen’s gamma and brightness either on a schedule or manually. Together, these utilities make it easier to create a desktop that is not only visually appealing but also comfortable for extended use.

Installation Workflow and Live Usage

Lilidog is distributed as hybrid ISO images suitable for writing to USB sticks, which is the recommended way to try or install the system. The project’s release documentation outlines a sample workflow using a graphical “live‑usb‑maker” utility obtainable in AppImage form, including commands to extract and run the tool and a note to use “image mode” when writing the ISO. While other USB‑creation methods are possible, these directions serve as a tested path that aligns with the distribution’s goal of lowering the barrier to entry.

After booting, the user can choose between running a live session or proceeding to installation.

The live session uses “user” as the username and “live” as the password, which are clearly documented in the release notes. This environment allows exploration of the desktop, menus, theming options and basic performance characteristics without touching the installed system’s disks.

When the user decides to install, Lilidog hands control to the standard Debian installer, offering both graphical and text modes, which should be familiar to anyone with prior Debian experience and reasonably straightforward for new users following common installation patterns.

During or after installation, Lilidog’s own welcome script becomes a central starting point. Among other things, it offers the option to add Debian backports sources, improving access to newer versions of certain packages while preserving Debian’s stable base.

In Beardog’s case, the welcome script also presents choices for installing LightDM, while in all editions the “Install Extras” menu provides curated sets of additional software. After the initial setup, system updates are managed in the usual Debian way, with a recommended routine of running update and upgrade commands to pull in the latest fixes from the stable repositories.

Lilidog - Customization (1) - Installed System

Lilidog - Customization (2) - Installed System

Window Managers and Advanced Options

While Lilidog centres on Openbox, it embraces the idea that users may wish to experiment with or migrate to other window managers and compositors. Through the Lilidog installers, several additional lightweight WMs become available on the X11 side, including Awesome, i3, JWM and SOWM.

Lilidog Installers >> Additional Window Managers

These are offered as custom‑configured options rather than raw upstream defaults, integrating with the existing themes and scripts as far as possible. Once installed, these window managers can be selected at login, giving users a variety of workflows without leaving the Lilidog ecosystem.

Waydog, as the Wayland‑oriented sibling, is particularly rich in compositor experimentation. Out of the box it includes Labwc and Sway, along with Waybar and Waypaper to provide panel and wallpaper handling in a Wayland‑native manner.

The Waydog installers can additionally deploy fully customised setups for Niri and Wayfire, offering tiling and compositing experiences that showcase different aspects of the Wayland stack.

Waydog - Waydog Installers - Installer System

From the project’s own description, Waydog is considered a “fun” release that demonstrates the potential future of small window manager‑centric desktops on Wayland.

Across both X11 and Wayland, lilidog‑specific tools like the Quick Theme Changer, Conky Chooser and ld‑hotcorners contribute to a sense of coherence, ensuring that switching WMs does not mean abandoning the distribution’s unique quality‑of‑life features. The ld‑hotcorners tool, for example, assigns commands to each screen corner, with a toggle in the menu and a configuration file that maps corners to actions such as launching the file manager, toggling Picom, opening an exit menu or starting a terminal.

Lilidog - The ld‑hotcorners configuration file - Geany

This form of small automation underscores the distribution’s focus on making frequent actions both discoverable and efficient while remaining transparent and editable for the user.

System Utilities and Extras

Beyond the core desktop, Lilidog includes a number of utilities that make the system feel “complete” from the first boot. The Newsboat RSS reader is preconfigured so that new feeds can be added quickly, and provides a text‑based way to follow updates from preferred sites without a separate GUI application.

System notifications are handled through Dunst, with options for audio cues, integrating seamlessly into the overall lightweight philosophy. A selection of pre‑built Conky configurations, as noted earlier, keeps system status and shortcuts close at hand without heavy resource use.

Lilidog - Htop - Terminal System Monitor

The “Menu Extras” section’s install options illustrate how the distribution curates additional software that may not be strictly necessary for a base desktop, but is commonly requested by users. Through this interface, one can install items such as the Liquorix kernel, QEMU, VirtualBox, Steam and Etcher, among others. This means that more advanced configurations, such as virtualisation setups or gaming environments, are only a menu entry away, rather than requiring users to research and assemble repositories and packages manually. Likewise, the installer provides options for adding Snap support and other components when desired.

The distribution’s use of hybrid ISOs and the emphasised checksum information on the download page support a secure installation workflow. SourceForge provides an information icon next to each file listing, exposing checksums so that users can verify the integrity of their downloads. Combined with the documented release dates embedded in version numbers and the ability to query the current build via a simple command, users are well equipped to ensure they are running the correct and uncorrupted version of the distribution. This attention to detail fits with the overarching theme of stability and care.

Community Presence and Development

Lilidog’s main public presence for downloads is its SourceForge project page, which centralises ISOs, release notes and user reviews. The project is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.0, aligning with the broader Debian and free software ecosystem. The wiki hosted under the same project provides additional documentation, describing the distribution’s builds, feature set and configuration options, as well as historical notes on its first major release under Debian “Buster”. Over time, the project notes more than two and a half thousand commits across its variants, demonstrating sustained development and refinement.

Discussion and support are channelled through the SourceForge discussion section and the separate Lilidog forum, which are referenced from the project’s various pages. Users can raise questions, share feedback or request features, with the project’s documentation explicitly inviting users to ask for guidance if they see new features discussed on the forum and are unsure how to apply them. In many cases, the project indicates that such features can be integrated into existing installations with relative ease, with the developer willing to provide the necessary instructions or files. This reinforces an ethos of collaborative refinement rather than strictly top‑down updates.

User reviews on SourceForge paint Lilidog as a carefully engineered, stable and detail‑oriented distribution, with several reviewers describing it as their favourite Openbox implementation. Comments praise the range of customisation options and the scripts supplied for other window managers, as well as highlighting the distribution’s suitability as an “out of the box” choice for beginners. One review notes that the distribution feels like a work of art, while another expresses satisfaction with the Trixie‑based release. Together, these reviews suggest that the distribution has found a niche audience that values both technical quality and an attentive approach to user experience.

Closing Word

Lilidog presents itself as a lean yet generous take on Debian stable, coupling a carefully tuned Openbox desktop (and Wayland‑based alternatives) with a broad collection of usability enhancements, theming tools and curated extras. Whether approached as a ready‑to‑use desktop in its main build or as a flexible base for custom setups through Beardog and Waydog, it gives users a stable foundation that they can either leave as‑is or shape extensively to their own tastes.

All product names, logos and brands mentioned remain the property of their respective owners, and any use of these trade names or trademarks here is for identification purposes only. The Distrowrite Project strives for accuracy and currency in the information it publishes about open‑source software, but readers should always consult official project resources for the latest details and exercise their own judgement when applying this material. Please use Lilidog, Debian and all other open‑source software responsibly and in compliance with applicable laws, licences and community guidelines in your jurisdiction.

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