As you can expect, these are not ordinary office desktops or general-purpose servers. The machines are part of the infrastructure that operates CERN’s accelerator complex, sitting close to the equipment and interfacing with hardware throughout the facilities.
Debian’s announcement confirms the plan to run all 2,200+ industrial and embedded systems on Debian 13 before the end of 2026.
The move is also the latest chapter in CERN’s long Linux history. Its accelerator systems previously followed the Red Hat ecosystem through several generations, moving from Scientific Linux alongside Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6, and later toward CentOS with the RHEL 7 and 8 generations
So, by the end of this year, Debian 13 should have a particularly interesting deployment to add to its resume: running the industrial and embedded computing layer behind CERN’s accelerator control infrastructure.
One comment:
RH/IBM has deprived CentOS of its usual stability, and instead of selling more licenses of Red Hat, they find themselves with CERN switching to Debian. They’re losing ground every day.
While IBM and Red Hat have every right to do whatever they wish with their products, customers and consumers also have every right to choose what they prefer, and CERN is a large customer who has chosen a free and open alternative in Debian Linux and it’s definitely a conservative, solid, and stable alternative. It’s also more flexible than any Red Hat product, another reason I’ve been in the Debian camp for over 25 years.
I read about this and it really highlights where RHEL’s priorities are in the industry(ies). They want to be the go to for cloud and large data centers. Imho I think Debian is better for CERN (and labs in general) and it’s going to serve them better in the long run anyway. (As long as they stay away from Canonical) - Again imo
I wonder how much of this switchover could be attributed to the idea of moving away from an OS controlled by a money-making Corporate entity, vs a separate Volunteer-based organization that is supported by “arms-length” donations?
With what is happening in the world, I think another factor may have been a significant consideration, but I will stop at what I have suggested above.
The deadline made the situation more difficult. The accelerator infrastructure had to be ready by the fourth quarter of 2026, leaving little room for an expensive hardware redesign.
One commenter thinks the same thing you do, but the ever changing hardware requirements seems to be a big reason too.
Microsoft effectively obsoleted an estimated 240 million functioning PCs by enforcing rigid hardware-level security and CPU microarchitecture requirements for Windows 11. Many Windows users are migrating to Linux distros as a result.
In CERN’s case the combination of IBM’s aggressive licensing monetization and use of software to drive rigid Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) compliance enforcement directly forced CERN’s hand, leading to the Debian 13 migration.
Microsoft effectively obsoleted an estimated 240 million functioning PCs by enforcing rigid hardware-level security and CPU microarchitecture requirements for Windows 11. Many Windows users are migrating to Linux distros as a result.