I too am suggesting one switches to Ubuntu LTS current production 
(20.4.x for all production x).  The one issue that I have not been able 
to resolve:  what is the installed base of LTS for real world production 
use?  I know of several "smallish" list servers that are using LTS.  Are 
others using production VME machines also considering LTS?

At some point, unless IBM business plans / management preclude this, 
there will be an IBM RHEL 9.  By that point, it may well be too late for 
the HEP community assuming CERN/Fermilab wants to have some "common" 
base available to the HEP community (presumably, beyond the immediate 
NDA collaboration contracts that exist for the various CERN/Fermilab 
experiments).  Several correspondents to this list have felt that this 
discussion does not apply to the SL community, a point of view with 
which I disagree in that it is an essential part of software and systems 
engineering to include future planning, both for deployment and support. 
  With the evident demise of SL 8 and beyond (and evidently some issues 
with the maintenance of SL 7.9 if I have not misread postings to this 
list), SL will not be the way forward.  Your observations on RHEL 
indicate that except for those who license RHEL for fee with an IBM RH 
support contract, RHEL is not an viable stable long-term (nor immediate) 
alternative.


On 3/5/21 1:09 PM, Konstantin Olchanski wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 04, 2021 at 06:27:07PM -0800, Yasha Karant wrote:
>>
>> Has anyone tried the Institute for Advanced Study Springdale (IAS)
>> EL 8 distro?
>>
> 
> What for? I have my "16 free RHEL subscriptions" to run my 1 el8 machine
> for developing and supporting the MIDAS data acquisition package.
> 
> As for everything else, at this very moment, I am:
> 
> a) converting all our RaspberyPi and FPGA SoC machines (about 10 of them) from CentOS-7.3 to Raspbian (ARM Debian)
> b) converting our VME processors to Ubuntu and 32-bit Debian (and updating the VME kernel drivers to linux-5.8)
> c) telling everybody to install Ubuntu or wait for CERN ("We will keep you informed about
> any developments in this area during Q1 2021." with Q1 ending in 25 days or so).
> 
> If RHEL8 (or clone) for 32-bit ARM and 32-bit x86 did exist... but... I think...
> 
> The ship has sailed.
>