Synex is a Linux distribution that’s been around for some months as a Debian-based, minimalistic Linux distribution out of Argentina focused on the needs of small and medium businesses. Making it a bit more intriguing for some now is that with their new release based on Debian 13 is a server edition and they have added native OpenZFS file-system support for new installations.

Synex got its start last year and has been tracking Debian 13. To this point it featured MATE, KDE, IceWM, LXDE, Xfce, and GNOME desktop editions. But now there is Synex Server 13 R1 and with this server edition comes the ability to carry out installs making use of the OpenZFS file-system support.

One of their main roadblocks was relying on the Debian Installer initially but it was not able to properly cope with the advanced features offered by ZFS and not properly handling ZFS for partitioning and formatting. Synex developers ended up developing synex-xfs-installer for providing native ZFS installations. The synex-zfs-installer is strictly for ZFS-based installs of Synex Server and falling back to Debian Installer for using other file-systems. At least from just hearing of Synex once or twice in the past several months, the OpenZFS integration seems to be one of the key differentiating features of Synex Server compared to just running upstream Debian on servers.

This initial Synex Server release also includes Synex Control 1.0 as an administration suite for configuring various server features and performing other administration tasks.

Those interested in learning more about Synex Server or this new Linux distro offering in general can check it out at synex.ar.