--- title: CERN Transitioning To Debian After Being A Longtime RHEL... description: CERN is moving away from RHEL-derived distributions after roughly two decades, first with Scientific Linux and then CentOS, to adopt Debian instead. Announced... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/cern-transitioning-to-debian-after-being-a-longtime-rhel-institution-z5ly7dxek twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: CERN Transitioning To Debian After Being A Longtime RHEL Institution | daily.dev og:description: CERN is moving away from RHEL-derived distributions after roughly two decades, first with Scientific Linux and then CentOS, to adopt Debian instead. Announced... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/cern-transitioning-to-debian-after-being-a-longtime-rhel-institution-z5ly7dxek og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/Z5ly7dxeK.png og:image:alt: CERN Transitioning To Debian After Being A Longtime RHEL Institution og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # CERN Transitioning To Debian After Being A Longtime RHEL Institution **[Phoronix](https://daily.dev/sources/phoronix)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary CERN is moving away from RHEL-derived distributions after roughly two decades, first with Scientific Linux and then CentOS, to adopt Debian instead. Announced at MiniDebConf in Winterthur, Switzerland, the decision came after CERN considered CentOS Stream but was ultimately pushed away by Red Hat's decision to default to the "-march=x86-64-v2" compiler flag, which they viewed as forcing obsolescence of older hardware. CERN has run into onboarding challenges with Debian, including gaps in tooling for automated package building/publishing and lack of support for multiple versions of the same package. The organization plans to have all 2,200+ industrial computers and embedded systems running Debian 13 by the end of 2026. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Why is CERN switching from RHEL-based Linux to Debian? CERN is moving to Debian after using RHEL-derived distributions (Scientific Linux, then CentOS) for roughly two decades. The deciding factor was Red Hat Enterprise Linux defaulting to the "-march=x86-64-v2" compiler flag, which CERN engineers considered a form of forced obsolescence for older hardware. They had also considered CentOS Stream before settling on Debian. _Teams weighing a Linux distro migration can follow real-world moves like this one on daily.dev._ ### When does CERN plan to complete its migration to Debian 13? CERN plans to have all of its more than 2,200 industrial computers and embedded systems running Debian 13 by the end of 2026. The transition was announced at MiniDebConf in Winterthur, Switzerland, after roughly a decade using CentOS following an earlier decade on Scientific Linux. _Anyone tracking large-scale Debian rollouts can follow migration timelines like this on daily.dev._ ### What tooling problems has CERN run into while adopting Debian? CERN has found gaps in Debian's official tooling for automated building and publishing of packages, and a number of tools that lack support for maintaining multiple versions of the same package simultaneously. These gaps have been a notable challenge during their onboarding process onto Debian for industrial and embedded systems. _Engineers evaluating Debian packaging workflows can find real deployment experiences like this on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 2 discussions and 13 comments across lobsters, hackernews (as of 2026-09-09). **TL;DR:** Discussion centers less on Debian itself and more on why CERN needs to keep supporting decades-old PCI/VME hardware, with some noting the RHEL/Alma move is limited to industrial and embedded systems rather than all of CERN's computing. **Sentiment:** 10% positive · 30% mixed · 60% skeptical **The case for** - Switching distros is cheaper than redesigning custom LHC control-plane hardware to newer standards. - Isolating old hardware on a distro that still supports it is a common, sensible industry pattern. **The pushback** - The main computing infrastructure reportedly remains on RHEL-based Alma Linux, so this move is narrower than headlines suggest. - Alternatives like NetBSD were floated but dismissed due to lack of custom kernel driver support for the old hardware. **By community** - lobsters (mixed): Focuses on the practical hardware-support tradeoffs behind the move, debating NetBSD vs Debian for legacy PCI/VME gear. - hackernews (skeptical): Points out the change is limited to industrial/embedded systems while core computing stays on Alma, with one dismissive joke about AI slop. **Open questions** - Will the rest of CERN's RHEL-based (Alma) computing infrastructure eventually follow the industrial systems to Debian? **Highlights** > Turns out that they have tons of PCI and VME based hardware in their LHC control plane that they still want to run on modern linux. Then it makes sense to go for a distro that still supports technologies that old. Common industry approach is to isolate such machines in a closed network and have them run whatever ancient OS they need to have to operate the machinery. I remember I sold my old 386 machine to someone maintaining a manufacturing line in some factory ... because he needed the exact motherboard model I happened to have. Similar story here, it is cheaper for them to switch distros than to reinvent and redo all of their custom hardware on newer standards (PCIe etc). Btw, their control room consoles are still on Alma with xfce. > — [pegasus on lobsters · 2 points, 1 comments](https://lobste.rs/s/fxk56i/cern_transitioning_industrial#c_r6rizf) > For industrial computers and other embedded systems. Computing AFAIK is very much still based on RHEL-based distros, Alma Linux specifically. https://linux.web.cern.ch/ > — [maxnoe on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49539134) > Yup we are always on the lookout for HP Itanium hardware as spares for a 30 year old ERP system. I have tried virtualizing it with QEMU with some success but the old hardware is our preferred fix. > — [stunder on lobsters · 1 points](https://lobste.rs/s/fxk56i/cern_transitioning_industrial#c_68z5ep) > Not when custom kernel drivers are involved ... > — [pegasus on lobsters · 2 points, 1 comments](https://lobste.rs/s/fxk56i/cern_transitioning_industrial#c_9fd6dy) **Source threads** - [lobsters](https://lobste.rs/s/fxk56i/cern_transitioning_industrial) · 21 points · 5 comments - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49538096) · 10 points · 8 comments --- Tags: [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/cern-transitioning-to-debian-after-being-a-longtime-rhel-institution-z5ly7dxek) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"CERN Transitioning To Debian After Being A Longtime RHEL Institution","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/cern-transitioning-to-debian-after-being-a-longtime-rhel-institution-z5ly7dxek","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/cern-transitioning-to-debian-after-being-a-longtime-rhel-institution-z5ly7dxek"},"datePublished":"2026-09-02T15:22:54.537Z","dateModified":"2026-09-09T02:50:02.560Z","description":"CERN is moving away from RHEL-derived distributions after roughly two decades, first with Scientific Linux and then CentOS, to adopt Debian instead. 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