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Good News! CERN is Migrating Over 2,200 Control Systems to Debian 13 (itsfoss.com)
submitted 3 weeks ago by to c/linux@lemmy.world
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[–] 32 points 3 weeks ago (12 children)

chips like Intel's old Core 2 Duo, which comprises about 47 percent of their fleet

That’s just a crazy number and I was not aware how dated their systems were. On the other hand, never touch a running system.

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  • [–] 30 points 3 weeks ago (10 children)

    The LHC was completed in 08. That chip was sold from 06 to 12. This means basically half the pc's they bought ~15 years ago are still meeting their needs.

    Honestly, this is the way it should be. The only reason most enterprises upgrade their computers is because Microslop, and all the other proprietary software they've allowed themselves to grow dependent on, require it; not because a 20 year old computer isn't snappy on Debian, or isn't powerful enough for email, docs, and browsing. The LHC requires supercomputers and server farms for primary operations. These pc's are basically just thin clients to access those resources.

    There are still a shocking amount of Windows XP and 7 systems in production, because the software stack doesn't need to be updated. If those systems had been deployed on linux 20 years ago, they would still be fully capable of receiving security updates.

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  • [–] 9 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    I work manufacturing, any computer that isn't connected to the internet doesn't get upgraded. Windows XP on PLC touchscreens.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago

    Yeah, and that's generally fine if it isn't critical infra that could be targeted by bad actors, and they don't have wifi or uncontrolled interfaces. The risk and damage of someone pulling apart an ATM to get at a USB port is negligible.

    The main problem with it is the longer things don't get upgraded the less people know how to fix or service them, which adds extra friction and cost to change anything with each passing year. After 10-20 years of zero updates, major projects are required because the OS and software stack need a complete overhaul to make even the smallest software change, and the software becomes a major bottleneck to organizational change or operations.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    The only reason most enterprises upgrade their computers is because Microslop

    Honestly - not true. It's compliance. Compliance says you need to be insured, insurance says you need to have vendor support, vendor says sorry, your old shit is out of support.

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  • [–] -1 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    The older CPUs are incredibly inefficient

    They would probably cover a good amount of the upgrade cost in just power savings

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago

    Keep in mind that they're talking about hardware control systems and not compute nodes. On these machines, the savings would probably not be too big (no/few consolidation gains). It also sounds like the decision was less about the upgrade cost and more about avoiding failure risks.

    I also ran the numbers for fun. They estimated the cost to be 5.4MCHF for 2200 machines. Assuming 0.2CHF/kWh, they would need to save 140W per machine for 10 years to offset the upgrade cost. So, yes, it could indeed offset a good part of the upgrade cost over time.

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