Linux Kernel Drops Support For Old Intel 386 CPUs

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux Kernel Drops Support For Old Intel 386 CPUs

Yet another change for the upcoming Linux 3.8 kernel is the removal of support for the old Intel i386 processors...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTI0OTg

[GreatEmerald]

You could almost say "the Linux kernel dropped support for i386"

[stativ]

I wonder if there was someone using modern linux kernels on i386 hardware?

[ryao]

The removal of 80386 support is sad when we consider that Linux was first developed on this hardware.

[chuckula]

The removal of 80386 support is sad when we consider that Linux was first developed on this hardware.

You beat me to it! Yes, the good ol' 386 was the first CPU to ever run Linux.

[Pallidus]

why not 486 also?


doubt there are many working 486 left, let alone working 486's able to run any distro

[curaga]

Same as with the P5 MMX topic recently, you can still buy embedded 486 variants @ 1 GHz.

They're also supported by glibc and other parts still. (glibc dropped 386 support several versions ago)

[Hamish Wilson]

Now what are we going to run on our machines when developing Commander Keen?

[Ibidem]

According to the comment (included in the article!), it means less work for SMP support.
It also means that the kernel developers don't need to maintain i486 emulation in the kernel.

On the other hand, there's no similar cost for supporting 486.

[oliver]

I wonder how much 486 code is so specific, that removal would improve things.

At first, I thought, removing i386 support (not 32bit support), that's strange, isn't the i486 and i686 support equal more or less.

But appearantly, whilst the 32bit stuff is technically still 'i386' at its core, there is weird stuff in the kernel to actually make it work on 80386 CPU's because of missing hardware features (thus emulating it etc etc) and since REAL 80386 are probably REALLY not used by physical hardware anymore.

As said above, 80486's are still in use and are far more similar to pentiums etc then 80386's isn't it A pentium was just a 80486 with some extra extenions wasn't it?

80286 actually missed crucial functions and while backports/hacks existed, it simply was even more crippled then many arm CPU's are now (only 16 bits for example).