In the context of the recent announcement that IBM will terminate CentOS8 prematurely, and not provide a free ‘Enterprise’ releases anymore, I was just curious if CERN, Fermilab, ETH, DESY will consider reviving the ScientificLinux project?
Hi Piperov,
I’m doing the on-site Linux support across the whole CERN and although but I don’t steer the IT department policy, I’m inclined to think that we will most likely go with a Centos RH type of release.
Just out of curiosity, as a scientist, what would you like to happen and why?
Kind regards
Dominique Cressatti
Dear Piperov,
Soon there will be an official statement from Fermilab and CERN along the following lines:
CERN and Fermilab acknowledge the recent decision to shift focus from CentOS Linux to CentOS Stream, and the sudden change of the end of life of the CentOS 8 release. These entail considerable consequences for the global particle physics community. We are currently investigating the best path forward. We will keep you informed about any developments in this area during Q1 2021.
Best Regards,
Manuel Guijarro
Dear Manuel,
Do you know if a decision has been reached? I cannot find any further statements.
Best Regards,
Björn
Dear Björn, The HEPiX presentation at https://indico.cern.ch/event/995485/contributions/4256466/attachments/2207964/3736640/hepix21-linuxatcern.pdf is our latest public one on the roadmap.
In summary, CERN and Fermilab have been evaluating a number of options in view of the sudden change of end of life of CentOS Linux 8 in December 2020 and the move to Stream. A migration path for servers already running CentOS Linux 8 is being provided to CentOS Stream 8 for those needing this release and latest features. Continued support for existing workloads on Scientific Linux 7 and CentOS 7 will be maintained as previously planned. We are evaluating a number of scenarios for future Linux distributions such as community editions or academic license options over the next 12 months as the shorter Stream lifecycle is not compatible with a number of use cases for the scientific program of the worldwide particle physics community.
Cheers,
manuel