CERN transitioning industrial computers to Debian after being a longtime RHEL institution
69 points by ema-pe
69 points by ema-pe
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.
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.
Out of curiosity, what language is the ERP system written in? Is it assembly or some proprietary language where newer compilers are no longer available?
I think NetBSD could have been better choice for older PCs
Why? It’s a much bigger change
Yeah after reading what they need for their task switching to NetBSD or any other OS would be massive task. They can weigh in those options if completely new project is popping up but not for this already running one with specific need
Since they specifically mentioned AlmaLinux, it's worth noting that AlmaLinux has a special x86_64 v2 variant that doesn't require v3-capable hardware. But the video presentation mentions CERN still has a bunch of v1 hardware they want to keep using, which apparently motivated the switch.
I still wonder at the comparative effort between switching distros vs. rebuilding AlmaLinux for x86_64 v1 (i.e., creating a revived Scientific Linux), but I'm sure they weighed that option.
Yeah my thoughts exactly they definitely thought about building their own custom Linux but current option they choose might be better for their task