Linux Kernel Maintainers Are Following Through on Removing Intel 486 Support
hubie writes:
Linux devs think even one second spent on 486 support is a second too many:
One point in favor of the sprawling Linux ecosystem is its broad hardware support-the kernel officially supports everything from '90s-era PC hardware to Arm-based Apple Silicon chips, thanks to decades of combined effort from hardware manufacturers and motivated community members.
But nothing can last forever, and for a few years now, Linux maintainers (including Linus Torvalds) have been pushing to drop kernel support for Intel's 80486 processor. This chip was originally introduced in 1989, was replaced by the first Intel Pentium in 1993, and was fully discontinued in 2007. Code commits suggest that Linux kernel version 7.1 will be the first to follow through, making it impossible to build a version of the kernel that will support the 486; Phoronix says that additional kernel changes to remove 486-related code will follow in subsequent kernel versions.
Although these chips haven't changed in decades, maintaining support for them in modern software isn't free.
"In the x86 architecture we have various complicated hardware emulation facilities on x86-32 to support ancient 32-bit CPUs that very, very few people are using with modern kernels," writes Linux kernel contributor Ingo Molnar in his initial patch removing 486 support from the kernel. "This compatibility glue is sometimes even causing problems that people spend time to resolve, which time could be spent on other things."
[...] "I get the nostalgia, like classic cars, but a car you've spent a year's worth of weekends fixing up isn't a daily driver," writes user andyj. "Some of the extensions I maintain, like rsyslog and mariadb, require that the CPU be set to i586 as they will no longer compile for i486. The end is already here."
Those still using a 486 for one reason or another will still be able to run older Linux kernels and vintage operating systems-running old software without emulation or virtualization is one of the few reasons to keep booting up hardware this old. If you demand an actively maintained OS, you still have options, though-the FreeDOS project isn't Linux, but it does still run on PCs going all the way back to the original IBM Personal Computer and its 16-bit Intel 8088.
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