CERN is transitioning its 2,200+ industrial accelerator-control computers from RHEL/CentOS to Debian Linux, ending a long-standing relationship with Red Hat-derived systems. The decision was driven by what CERN engineers called 'forced obsolescence' due to CentOS Stream's default '-march=x86-64-v2' compiler flag, which limited support for older hardware.
Background
CERN historically co-maintained Scientific Linux and later used CentOS since 2015 for its critical infrastructure. This transition marks a notable shift in the HPC and scientific computing world, where RHEL has traditionally dominated.
- Source
- Lobsters
- Published
- Sep 3, 2026 at 04:28 PM
- Score
- 7.0 / 10