4 ms·

CERN Transitioning Computers To Debian After Being A Longtime RHEL Institution

48 points by thunderbong 1mo ago

deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
theandrewbailey 1mo ago
> CERN engineers had considered moving to CentOS Stream as a more natural pathway but ultimately they say "the straw that broke the camel's back" to abandon Red Hat Enterprise Linux for their industrial accelerator-control computers was the "-march=x86-64-v2" compiler flag default as "forced obsolescence" for old hardware. Incompatibility with x86-64-v2 means that CERN is running some older machines, over 15 years old: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64#Microarchitecture_levels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64#Microarchitecture_level...
- cassianoleal 1mo ago
  15 years is not old at all for a lot of applications!
- Brian_K_White 1mo ago
  What's your point?
- sgarland 1mo ago
  > CERN has clarified that their focus with the migration is on their industrial accelerator-control computers while data centers and experimental computing remain on RHEL/AlmaLinux. For control systems, it’s perfectly reasonable to be using old stuff. Other than power consumption, you aren’t really losing anything, and I think that they famously have some other equipment there that consumes a touch more power than some old servers.
- nairboon 1mo ago
  That's a good thing, it means CERN is getting a lot of mileage out of their IT purchases. Buying new machines and deploying them at todays RAM prices? Looks like they are managing their budget responsibly.
- OroPla 1mo ago
  In other engineering fields systems are supposed to be supported for at least 60 years. Now that IT stuff has matured, it might be time to hold it to similar standards of longevity.
- account42 1mo ago
  Is 15 years a lot?
  - bigstrat2003 1mo ago
    In computer terms it certainly is.
M95D 1mo ago
They could have used gentoo with their own binary package server. Maximum flexibility, including all compiler flags.
- tosti 1mo ago
  I had the exact same thought! One guy could maintain their OS. No forced compiler flags, internal binhost, everything else same as what they had.
  - M95D 1mo ago
    There's even a thing called GRS (Gentoo Reference System) - a predefined Gentoo configuration that predictibly generates identical Gentoo installations. It's probably a chore to set up (that is, more than an ordinary Gentoo), but I expect it would make it very easy to maintain hundreds of installations based on that GRS.
- jmclnx 1mo ago
  I believe NetBSD would be better for these machines. NetBSD supports old systems quite well and have a release cycle that in cases are longer than Debian. But, CERN may have some proprietary applications on those systems that force them to use a specific setup which is hard to replicate in other distros.
  - amadio 1mo ago
    Most software at CERN is open source. But you are right, for things which are quite specific to CERN, like the control systems of the accelerator, there's also some proprietary code. Same for hardware actually, CERN develops open hardware too. https://opensource.web.cern.ch/ https://opensource.web.cern.ch/
- amadio 1mo ago
  I'm a Gentoo dev and work at CERN since a while. Of course I jokingly suggested that to my colleagues. I think it could actually work pretty well, though. Many physicists use Gentoo. We run most things on Alma Linux, but there's also RedHat in the mix. A good intersection of CERN and Gentoo is EESSI. They use CVMFS, which is a FUSE filesystem used for software distribution from CERN, and Gentoo as part of their software stack. See links below for more info: - https://www.eessi.io/docs/filesystem_layer/ https://www.eessi.io/docs/filesystem_layer/ - https://www.eessi.io/docs/compatibility_layer/ https://www.eessi.io/docs/compatibility_layer/
skywhopper 1mo ago
Good, I wonder how much money they’ve wasted over the years paying for RHEL.
- jasonvorhe 1mo ago
  Eh? Didn't they come up with CentOS initially to not have to pay for RHEL? I was ready irritated by the title but then again, phoronix has been a joke site for at least a few years.
- orev 1mo ago
  They weren’t using RHEL. The title would be more accurate if it said “RHEL-based Linux”. They used their own build called Scientific Linux for a long time, then switch to CentOS. Then Oracle started aggressively poaching RedHat’s customers with Oracle Linux, which forced RedHat to start locking things down. One side-effect is that the life of CentOS 8 was dramatically shortened, and then RedHat killed the stable released versions of CentOS (9, 10, etc.). CentOS is now a rolling release “Stream” distribution, which nobody actually wants to use in production. All this drama alienated many people who built their careers on RHEL-based systems, and created (either actual or perceived) instability in the RHEL ecosystem. And at the same time they started deprecating older hardware, some would say far too early. This is the “straw that broke the camel’s back”, as they said in the CERN presentation.
kalayciburak 1mo ago
[dead]
fuckinpuppers 1mo ago
Good. Debian is great and Rhel sucks

48 points by thunderbong 1mo ago

deleted 1mo ago

[deleted]

> CERN engineers had considered moving to CentOS Stream as a more natural pathway but ultimately they say "the straw that broke the camel's back" to abandon Red Hat Enterprise Linux for their industrial accelerator-control computers was the "-march=x86-64-v2" compiler flag default as "forced obsolescence" for old hardware. Incompatibility with x86-64-v2 means that CERN is running some older machines, over 15 years old: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64#Microarchitecture_levels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64#Microarchitecture_level...

cassianoleal 1mo ago
15 years is not old at all for a lot of applications!
Brian_K_White 1mo ago
What's your point?
sgarland 1mo ago
> CERN has clarified that their focus with the migration is on their industrial accelerator-control computers while data centers and experimental computing remain on RHEL/AlmaLinux. For control systems, it’s perfectly reasonable to be using old stuff. Other than power consumption, you aren’t really losing anything, and I think that they famously have some other equipment there that consumes a touch more power than some old servers.
nairboon 1mo ago
That's a good thing, it means CERN is getting a lot of mileage out of their IT purchases. Buying new machines and deploying them at todays RAM prices? Looks like they are managing their budget responsibly.
OroPla 1mo ago
In other engineering fields systems are supposed to be supported for at least 60 years. Now that IT stuff has matured, it might be time to hold it to similar standards of longevity.
account42 1mo ago
Is 15 years a lot?
- bigstrat2003 1mo ago
  In computer terms it certainly is.

M95D 1mo ago

They could have used gentoo with their own binary package server. Maximum flexibility, including all compiler flags.

tosti 1mo ago
I had the exact same thought! One guy could maintain their OS. No forced compiler flags, internal binhost, everything else same as what they had.
- M95D 1mo ago
  There's even a thing called GRS (Gentoo Reference System) - a predefined Gentoo configuration that predictibly generates identical Gentoo installations. It's probably a chore to set up (that is, more than an ordinary Gentoo), but I expect it would make it very easy to maintain hundreds of installations based on that GRS.
jmclnx 1mo ago
I believe NetBSD would be better for these machines. NetBSD supports old systems quite well and have a release cycle that in cases are longer than Debian. But, CERN may have some proprietary applications on those systems that force them to use a specific setup which is hard to replicate in other distros.
- amadio 1mo ago
  Most software at CERN is open source. But you are right, for things which are quite specific to CERN, like the control systems of the accelerator, there's also some proprietary code. Same for hardware actually, CERN develops open hardware too. https://opensource.web.cern.ch/ https://opensource.web.cern.ch/
amadio 1mo ago
I'm a Gentoo dev and work at CERN since a while. Of course I jokingly suggested that to my colleagues. I think it could actually work pretty well, though. Many physicists use Gentoo. We run most things on Alma Linux, but there's also RedHat in the mix. A good intersection of CERN and Gentoo is EESSI. They use CVMFS, which is a FUSE filesystem used for software distribution from CERN, and Gentoo as part of their software stack. See links below for more info: - https://www.eessi.io/docs/filesystem_layer/ https://www.eessi.io/docs/filesystem_layer/ - https://www.eessi.io/docs/compatibility_layer/ https://www.eessi.io/docs/compatibility_layer/

skywhopper 1mo ago

Good, I wonder how much money they’ve wasted over the years paying for RHEL.

jasonvorhe 1mo ago
Eh? Didn't they come up with CentOS initially to not have to pay for RHEL? I was ready irritated by the title but then again, phoronix has been a joke site for at least a few years.
orev 1mo ago
They weren’t using RHEL. The title would be more accurate if it said “RHEL-based Linux”. They used their own build called Scientific Linux for a long time, then switch to CentOS. Then Oracle started aggressively poaching RedHat’s customers with Oracle Linux, which forced RedHat to start locking things down. One side-effect is that the life of CentOS 8 was dramatically shortened, and then RedHat killed the stable released versions of CentOS (9, 10, etc.). CentOS is now a rolling release “Stream” distribution, which nobody actually wants to use in production. All this drama alienated many people who built their careers on RHEL-based systems, and created (either actual or perceived) instability in the RHEL ecosystem. And at the same time they started deprecating older hardware, some would say far too early. This is the “straw that broke the camel’s back”, as they said in the CERN presentation.

kalayciburak 1mo ago

[dead]

fuckinpuppers 1mo ago

Good. Debian is great and Rhel sucks