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I switched from CentOS to Debian on servers three years ago. I'd give two reasons: 1) No need for EPEL and similar extra repositories. Debian is extremely comp

I switched from CentOS to Debian on servers three years ago. I'd give two reasons: 1) No need for EPEL and similar extra repositories. Debian is extremely comprehensive. 2) Rolling updates. We keep some servers in the stable release, some in the testing release. No hiccups on upgrade, yet. Servers you keep on the stable channel will go through the same kind of upgrades you see on major CentOS versions. I never had a CentOS upgrade go smoothly; We'd usually just reinstall everything from config management. When Debian 8 came out, we opted for a distro-upgrade and everything was perfectly smooth. It took longer to go through change management (cycle out of production, test, slowly reapply load) than it took to actually upgrade the servers. The servers we keep on testing are non-critical, and go through much more frequent distro-upgrade cycles. We had a couple bumps on the road, during the sysv init to systemd transition, but overall I still classify the distro as extremely solid and much better than our previous experience with CentOS.

samueloph 9y ago
> I never had a CentOS upgrade go smoothly; We'd usually just reinstall everything from config management AFAIK CentOS does not support distro-upgrades (eg. upgrading from CentOS 6 to CentOS 7)[1], we always end up making a fresh install whenever we want to upgrade, i've tried to use the UpgradeTool a few times but it didn't work (there was always something blocking the upgrade). I believe this would be a point for Debian, the upgrade between releases just work :) [1]https://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/CentOSUpgradeTool https://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/CentOSUpgradeTool
- jsight 9y ago
  Yeah, in-place upgrades between CentOS releases are not really supported, just as they are not really supported with RHEL. However, this also comes with a perk. CentOS releases are generally the "current" release for at least three years, as opposed to two with Debian. Also, major releases are supported with critical security updates for years after they are no longer current. For example, CentOS 6 will still receive patches until November 2020. Of course, whether this is important to you will vary based upon your needs. For some, the 2 year releases with an easy upgrade path between major releases will be the more important factor.
- xemdetia 9y ago
  Having dealt with in the past RHEL 6 to 7 is supported but only for the server edition: https://access.redhat.com/solutions/637583 https://access.redhat.com/solutions/637583. At a certain point I'm not sure what Debian does so much better, but that's just because I have not really needed to investigate it to the same depth as RHEL.
- lima 9y ago
  It will probably work for 7 -> 8, the upgrade tool is a recent addition. It already worked in RHEL for 6 -> 7. That being said, for RHEL 6 -> 7 I did a clean reinstall due to the large architectural changes and it was the right decision.
lima 9y ago
> Debian is extremely comprehensive Yes, Debian is comprehensive, but it comes at a price. Red Hat/CentOS are much better at maintaining the (fewer) packages they support and providing timely patches. Bugs in less critical Debian packages sometimes linger for years. That being said, Debian is a great server OS and the only one except CentOS that I'd recommend to anyone.

samueloph 9y ago

> I never had a CentOS upgrade go smoothly; We'd usually just reinstall everything from config management AFAIK CentOS does not support distro-upgrades (eg. upgrading from CentOS 6 to CentOS 7)[1], we always end up making a fresh install whenever we want to upgrade, i've tried to use the UpgradeTool a few times but it didn't work (there was always something blocking the upgrade). I believe this would be a point for Debian, the upgrade between releases just work :) [1]https://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/CentOSUpgradeTool https://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/CentOSUpgradeTool

jsight 9y ago
Yeah, in-place upgrades between CentOS releases are not really supported, just as they are not really supported with RHEL. However, this also comes with a perk. CentOS releases are generally the "current" release for at least three years, as opposed to two with Debian. Also, major releases are supported with critical security updates for years after they are no longer current. For example, CentOS 6 will still receive patches until November 2020. Of course, whether this is important to you will vary based upon your needs. For some, the 2 year releases with an easy upgrade path between major releases will be the more important factor.
xemdetia 9y ago
Having dealt with in the past RHEL 6 to 7 is supported but only for the server edition: https://access.redhat.com/solutions/637583 https://access.redhat.com/solutions/637583. At a certain point I'm not sure what Debian does so much better, but that's just because I have not really needed to investigate it to the same depth as RHEL.
lima 9y ago
It will probably work for 7 -> 8, the upgrade tool is a recent addition. It already worked in RHEL for 6 -> 7. That being said, for RHEL 6 -> 7 I did a clean reinstall due to the large architectural changes and it was the right decision.

lima 9y ago

> Debian is extremely comprehensive Yes, Debian is comprehensive, but it comes at a price. Red Hat/CentOS are much better at maintaining the (fewer) packages they support and providing timely patches. Bugs in less critical Debian packages sometimes linger for years. That being said, Debian is a great server OS and the only one except CentOS that I'd recommend to anyone.