GCC Developers Look At Dropping i386 Support

Now that the Linux kernel has dropped support for old Intel 386 CPUs, GCC developers are also considering the removal of i386 support from their compiler.

Hours after the Linux kernel saw support removed for the vintage i386 CPUs, a discussion started on the GCC development list about dropping the i386 support from this leading open-source compiler.

In similar reasoning to the Linux kernel developers nuking the i386 support to reduce complexity and the maintenance burden within the kernel, the reasonings for getting rid of the support from the GNU Compiler Collection is much the same. Steven Bosscher, the one initiating this change for GCC, classified the clean-ups as removing PROCESSOR_I386, TARGET_386, X86_TUNE_DOUBLE_WITH_ADD, X86_ARCH_CMPXCHG/X86_ARCH_XADD/X86_ARCH_BSWAP, and more clean-ups pertaining to lock-free atomic int support.

So far developers seem to be in support of this move, the discussion thread concerning the possible removal of i386 support from GCC can be seen here. "If you use an almost 30 years old architecture, why would you need the latest-and-greatest compiler technology? Seriously..."