CERN Transitioning From RHEL To Debian (phoronix.com)
- Reference: 0185379594
- News link: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/26/09/02/2041220/cern-transitioning-from-rhel-to-debian
- Source link: https://www.phoronix.com/news/CERN-Goes-Debian-Leaving-RHEL
> CERN [2]plans to have all 2,200+ industrial computers and embedded systems in its accelerator-control infrastructure [3]running Debian 13 by the end of 2026 . These are systems used for accelerator control, laboratory equipment and other operational functions ... They also generate and interact with a hefty amount of data, although this [4]Linux.com article refers more broadly to CERN's computing infrastructure. It's unclear whether the Debian migration covers all server infrastructure or what scientific-research-based systems are included. Our shops have done much the same in recent years, mostly due to CentOS and CFEngine getting the can.
Phoronix adds some additional context in its article: CERN was a longtime RHEL/CentOS shop, previously co-maintained the Scientific Linux RHEL derivative, moved to CentOS in 2015, and later considered CentOS Stream. CERN says Red Hat's adoption of the "-march=x86-64-v2" compiler flag by default, which it viewed as "forced obsolescence" of older hardware, was the "straw that broke the camel's back."
[1] https://slashdot.org/~Microsplat
[2] https://gemmei.ftp.acc.umu.se/pub/debian-meetings/2026/MiniDebConf-Winterthur/ch2026-53-controlling-cerns-accelerators-with-debian.av1.webm
[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/CERN-Goes-Debian-Leaving-RHEL
[4] https://www.linux.com/topic/open-source/how-cern-using-linux-open-source/
"I never thought I'd see a Resonance Cascade, let (Score:2)
"I never thought I'd see a Resonance Cascade, let alone create one..."
Does this affect CERN and only CERN? (Score:2)
I do wonder what the Venn Diagram is of people who are running CPUs and systems which are older than 18 years but equally need to run the absolute latest OS version.
I would have thought there'd be a desire to not upgrade software to prevent the old "forced obsolete" systems to have to deal with modern day bloat, or the desire to not deal with breaking changes in major OS version upgrades.
But on a slightly adjacent thought, presumably CERN is highly optimising their chosen version of Linux for the purpose th
Complains about compiler flags (Score:1, Troll)
But the forced obsolescence caused by systemd is fine.
Re: Complains about compiler flags (Score:2)
Systemd doesn't do that, although it causes other problems, like breaking early boot logging when part of its mission was supposed to be fixing logging. It doesn't have significant requirements...
RHEL versus Debian philosophy? (Score:3)
With RHEL 10 adding more complex stuff like Lightspeed and immutable kernels, it is starting to have a lot more moving parts. RHEL used to be the production choice, but as time went on, there is a lot of oddball stuff, and oddball decisions made. For example, even though Fedora has btrfs, RHEL doesn't have btrfs, even as a -supported- option. (Yes, you can slap ZFS on it, but supported is the big thing).
Debian, on the other hand, doesn't have snaps, flatpaks, or other subsystems present by default. It "just works" out of the box. Plus, other systems like Proxmox can be installed on vanilla Debian with ease.
I would assert that because that fewer moving parts are needed, it makes things easier. You can take filesystem snapshots without Stratis, for example.
Rocky Linux (Score:2)
I'm a bit surprised they didn't go for Rocky Linux. Nothing wrong with Debian, mind, but Rocky is downstream from CentOS/RHEL and would be an easier migration.
Re: Rocky Linux (Score:3)
Do they not use the same arch?