Synex 13 Puts a Minimalist Spin on Debian for Work and Home

Built on Debian Trixie, Synex aims to cut post‑install busywork with sensible defaults, app choices up front, and a clean KDE Plasma experience.

The FOSS Force Distro of the Week — Synex

To hear Bruno Russo tell it, putting together this week’s Distro of the Week not only started as a labor of love, but also to fill a need to cut back on post-installation work. The distro is Argentina’s Synex, and Russo is the project’s founder and lead developer.

“Synex started as a personal project to suit my own needs,” he told me via email. “I began working on it in September 2025. My original idea was to build a customized Debian-based system focused on a minimalist software selection, with the applications I actually need both at work and on my home computers.”

The simple mission that grew out of that beginning is everywhere evident in this distro. The project delivers a minimalist and stable operating system that meets the needs of small and medium-sized businesses, as well as individual users looking for a simple computer experience while focusing on simplicity without compromising performance.

“This came from something I have long been critical of in many distributions: the amount of post-install work required,” Russo explained. “For example, installing Debian live at work often meant manually removing a lot of software, then customizing the environment machine by machine, or cloning an already prepared setup. On the other hand, using a netinstall image and then manually building everything from scratch was not a practical option for my use case either.”

The project’s latest and greatest version, Synex 13, is based on Debian 13 “Trixie,” which uses the 6.18 Linux kernel. It comes in six desktop/window manager flavors — the default KDE Plasma, Xfce, Gnome, Mate, LXDE, and IceWM — as well as a server edition.

“I saw Synex not only as a desktop distribution, but as a broader project with two complementary lines: one focused on desktop usability, and another focused on practical server deployment and administration.”

For this review, we are using the default KDE Plasma desktop environment.

Installing Synex 13

Once the 2.7 GB ISO for Synex 13 was put on a USB drive, I booted into a live version of the distro. An icon in the upper left beckoned me to download and install it onto my hardware, and I heeded the siren’s call to do so.

The Synex 13 installer is a modified version of Calamares with an extra step added to the process. After the customary welcome screen prompted for a language choice, I was asked for time zone and keyboard preferences before being shown disk partition options. After this came the slight detour from the normal Calamares routine: I was asked what applications I’d like to have included in the installation.

These software preferences are broken down into four categories, starting with software designed specifically for Synex, including a variety of tools to make Synex work. I checked all of these. Next, there is a section called Productivity, which includes software such as LibreOffice, OnlyOffice, Thunderbird, Firefox, Chrome, and even Microsoft Edge, believe it or not. The next section is Multimedia, which includes VLC, kdenlive, Clementine, Amarok, and Elisa. Finally there’s Other Apps, a catch-all section that includes GIMP, Inkscape, Krita, Code, and Isoimagewriter.

Once I chose the software to be included in the installation, I was prompted to enter a name and password, and given the option to use the same password for administrative purposes or to create a separate admin password. After a final check, I hit install and was off to the races.

Kicking the Tires

According to Russo, Synex doesn’t enforce strict minimum hardware requirements, “mainly because Synex spans several desktop environments with very different resource profiles.” However, he said that for the KDE Plasma and Gnome editions the minimum system requirements are a 64-bit CPU, 4 GB RAM, and 25 GB available storage. For all of the other desktop flavors, the minimum requirements are a 64-bit CPU, 2 GB RAM, and 20 GB storage.

The first thing I encountered on first boot was the Welcome screen, which provided information about the distro, along with buttons to navigate online destinations such as the distro’s official website, the forum, the YouTube channel, the download page, and more. There are three buttons at the top of the screen: Welcome, System Health, and Tools. The Welcome button welcomes users to the distro, the System Health button provides information on the system being used, and the Tools button provides a screen to update the system, install NVIDIA drivers, update firmware, and System Cleanup.

I can’t speak for all of the distro’s flavors, but the KDE Plasma version of Synex 13 is a joy to use, handling a wide assortment of tasks with ease. Part of this is because Synex does not include extraneous software. The fact that software is chosen during installation makes for a neat and clean user experience.

The software I selected worked with little, if any, tweaking. The VLC media player provided the soundtrack to my daily use while I surfed the web with Firefox and sent-and-received email with Thunderbird. While this was happening, I was writing this article using LibreOffice, along with GIMP to adjust the accompanying screenshots.

The only thing I changed was the wallpaper. Synex comes with a relatively light wallpaper background, and I changed it to a darker background as a matter of personal preference. Actually, there is a wide selection of wallpaper available, most of which comes from Debian, so enough choices to make just about any user happy.

Using all of these programs simultaneously, Synex hardly broke a sweat. Running a wide variety of software running simultaneously hardly had the CPU using more than 4 GB RAM. The distro also played nicely with web apps like Google Docs and Google Drive.

Final Thoughts

With Debian Trixie running under the hood, it comes as no surprise that Synex is a capable Linux distribution. For a distro that has only been around for eight months, Russo and his team have developed a spectacular offering.

Who’s it for? Just about anybody. The KDE Plasma version is easy enough for new users, thanks to the Synex developers providing what is needed without including filler. In addition, new users can add whatever software they want, either during installation, or post-install using either the Discover app or the MX Package Installer, both of which are included by default.

Perhaps the only downside to Synex for new users might be the distro’s age — or lack thereof — when it comes to providing help on the forums, which haven’t had time yet to grow a following. This makes valid answers to issues on the short side for the time being, something that should develop with time. In the meantime, I’d recommend using Debian forums to address issues you might encounter.

Moving away from newcomers, I think intermediate users and greybeards would have a field day with Synex, adding and removing software to their liking and going to town, so to speak. The only problem for them might be the already mentioned availability of Microsoft Edge, which is somewhat mind blowing in a WTF sort of way.

Other than that, Russo and his team have done a remarkable job and Synex 13 is clearly worth a look. Stop by Synex’s download page and pick up the ISO for any of the project’s desktop/window manager options.

Do you have a distro you think would make a great feature for FOSS Force’s Distro of the Week? Don’t be shy—let us know! Offer your suggestions in the comments below (or use the “contact us” link under our masthead) and we’ll make an effort to make it so… No suggestion is too mainstream or too niche—let us know what you’d like to see!

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