Appendix: Migrating from CentOS to Debian OS

The migration process from CentOS to Debian OS involves the following high-level changes:

The filename format for .deb packages differs from that of .rpm packages. In the .deb format, the filename follows the pattern: <name>_<version>_<arch>.deb
Note: Underscores must not be included in name, version, or arch components. The .rpm format is different from this, as it uses hyphens to separate components and allows underscores in names.
In addition to change in package name, this also involves change in package formatting, including a change in the package manager.
Debian uses the apt or apt-get command for package management, while CentOS uses yum or dnf.
The loading of shell profile files, such as /etc/profile.d/sr_app_env.sh, differs between Debian and CentOS. In most cases, the loading process is centrally aligned. However, there can be instances where the environment of an application or script does not meet the expected conditions. For example, the PATH variable may not include the srlinux paths. In such cases, you can replace sh to bash, or append -l to the shell command, or combine both options, to make it a login shell.

Debian 12 uses Python 3.11.2 by default. The Python upgrade from the previously used 3.6 version to 3.11.2 does not affect the functionality of the following items, unless otherwise specified.

Event Handler scripts
NDK
Note: The new path of the generated NDK protos on Debian is /usr/lib/python3.11/dist-packages/sdk_protos. A symlink has been added to refer to the new path from the old one. In future releases, the symlink will no longer be available. Therefore, NDK developers who use on-box generated protos must update their import paths accordingly.
Python provisioning scripts
Show commands and CLI plug-ins
ZTP Python library

However, in the case of custom package development, following must be considered:

Python packages are installed as wheels instead of eggs. For instructions about packaging in wheels format, see the Wheels binary package documentation.
The parametrized package replaces the Python module nose-parameterized package. For migration instructions, see the nose-parametrized documentation.