CERN Transitioning From RHEL To Debian
Longtime Slashdot reader Microsplat: CERN plans to have all 2,200+ industrial computers and embedded systems in its accelerator-control infrastructure 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 Linux.com article refers more…
CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, plans to transition all 2,200+ industrial computers and embedded systems in its accelerator-control infrastructure to Debian 13 by the end of 2026. These systems are used for accelerator control, laboratory equipment, and other operational functions, generating and interacting with a significant amount of data.
The article from Linux.com refers more broadly to CERN's computing infrastructure, but it is unclear whether the Debian migration includes all server infrastructure or which scientific-research-based systems are part of the transition.
The move comes after CERN was a longtime RHEL/CentOS shop, previously co-maintaining the Scientific Linux RHEL derivative. They first moved to CentOS in 2015 and later considered CentOS Stream. According to an article on Phoronix, the decision to switch away from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) was driven by Red Hat's adoption of the -march=x86-64-v2 compiler flag by default. CERN viewed this change as a form of "forced obsolescence" for older hardware, which they found unacceptable.
Written by urgent.news from Slashdot's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
