CERN, the operator of the Large Hadron Collider, is switching thousands of "front end" control computers underground from Red Hat-family Linux distributions to Debian. The move was prompted largely by Red Hat's 2020 decision to slash CentOS 8's support lifespan by eight years, leaving CERN unable to plan the long-term hardware and software lifecycles it needs for equipment that must run reliably for up to 15 years.

CERN had relied on Red Hat-derived systems for over two decades, including the jointly maintained Scientific Linux and later its own CentOS 7 build after Red Hat absorbed CentOS in 2014. A key blocker was that RHEL 9 and RHEL 10 raised minimum CPU requirements, which would have made roughly 65 percent of CERN's embedded control computers obsolete, some running specialised hardware such as VMEbus boards. Engineers estimated replacing this custom hardware would cost at least CHF 5.4 million (about £5 million), require new staff and even new underground tunnels, with only a 20 percent chance of success, prompting CERN to evaluate and ultimately adopt Debian instead.