A frugal, portable and flexible OS.
Vanilla Dpup is a lightweight, community-built operating system based on Puppy Linux and Debian.
Like Puppy, it has that 2000s look and features a curated selection of preconfigured, lightweight applications for a variety of daily computing tasks like browsing and note-taking. Like Debian, it's compatible with a huge range of computers and applications. Vanilla Dpup tries to strike the right balance between lightweight and practical, while improving efficiency and security.
You can choose between the 10.0.x release series or the older 9.3.x: both receives security and stability updates. Adventurous users can try development builds of the 11.0.x series.
This release series tracks Debian Bookworm. Vanilla Dpup 10.0.x looks like 9.3.x, but it's bigger, it's heavier, and there's new technology under the hood, making it faster and more secure.
It uses the much newer 6.1.x kernel series, modernizes Bluetooth audio and screen capture support by replacing PulseAudio with PipeWire, adds Landlock-based sandboxing for internet-facing applications and adds a Wayland preview.
| Flavor | X.Org | Xwayland |
|---|---|---|
| Tagline | The safe bet | The best of both worlds, mostly |
| Ease of Migration from 9.3.x | Trivial | Easy |
| VSync | Requires compositor | Built-in |
| Suitable for Gaming | Yes | Mostly yes |
| Range of Supported GPUs | Wide | Limited |
| Multi-Monitor Support | Normal | With caveats |
| HiDPI Support | Limited | With caveats |
| Flatpak Support | Limited | Better |
This release series is based on Debian Bullseye packages and cuts the amount of technical debt and legacy cruft accumulated in Puppy Linux throughout the years, to prepare for big and disruptive changes like the deprecation of X.Org and GTK+ 2 in favor of Wayland and GTK+ 3 or 4, and the adoption of overlay as a replacement for aufs.
Those familiar with Puppy Linux will enjoy improved responsiveness, low resource usage, reliable package management with apt-get, GTK+ 3 ports of classic themes, GTK+ 3 ports of lightweight applications lost to time, Bluetooth audio support, fast web browsing thanks to DNS caching, ad blocking and privacy tweaks, shell completion, man pages, keyboard shortcuts, easy installation of drivers and multi-language support.
Until this release series is phased out, the older package base makes Vanilla Dpup 9.3.x lighter, smaller and more suitable for very old hardware that cannot run 10.0.x comfortably.
Download latest release (32-bit) Download latest release (64-bit)
This version is in early development, tracks Debian Trixie and completes the multi-year migration effort to Wayland by replacing the traditional Puppy desktop with labwc and waybar.
This version boots faster, shuts down faster, feels faster, improves Debian compatibility and includes new features like save folder encryption, improved multi-monitor support, screen recording, simpler installation, more flexible management of saved sessions and better documentation.
It's built by a revamped build system that makes it easy to develop, rebuild and customize.
Download latest development build (64-bit)