Sunshine (she/her)@lemmy.ca to Linux@programming.devEnglish · 3 days agoLinux Kernel to Drop Support for Legacy i486 and Early 586 CPUslinuxiac.comexternal-linkmessage-square12linkfedilinkarrow-up1129arrow-down11
arrow-up1128arrow-down1external-linkLinux Kernel to Drop Support for Legacy i486 and Early 586 CPUslinuxiac.comSunshine (she/her)@lemmy.ca to Linux@programming.devEnglish · 3 days agomessage-square12linkfedilink
minus-squareLuffy@lemmy.mllinkfedilinkarrow-up44·2 days agoIt says a lot about linux that them dropping support for an over 20 year old CPU is a big anouncement
minus-squarezurohki@aussie.zonelinkfedilinkEnglisharrow-up23·edit-22 days agoIt’s apparently the Pentium 1 and older, so those chips were discontinued in 1999. Almost 26 years old. Ditching i686 could be a problem for people running 32-bit stuff on modern hardware, though. I expect that’ll hang around for a while yet.
minus-squareLeFantome@programming.devlinkfedilinkarrow-up4·1 day agoTo be clear, you still still be able to run 32 bit binaries on a 64 bit kernel. So, there will be no more kernel support for Pentium (in 5 years or more) but you will still run i686 userland code. I do not see this changing for a very long time.
minus-squareLeFantome@programming.devlinkfedilinkarrow-up8·2 days agoThere were still new 486 compatible chips being released up until about 2010. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex86 They released a 486sx (no FPU) in 2007.
It says a lot about linux that them dropping support for an over 20 year old CPU is a big anouncement
It’s apparently the Pentium 1 and older, so those chips were discontinued in 1999. Almost 26 years old.
Ditching i686 could be a problem for people running 32-bit stuff on modern hardware, though. I expect that’ll hang around for a while yet.
To be clear, you still still be able to run 32 bit binaries on a 64 bit kernel. So, there will be no more kernel support for Pentium (in 5 years or more) but you will still run i686 userland code. I do not see this changing for a very long time.
There were still new 486 compatible chips being released up until about 2010.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex86
They released a 486sx (no FPU) in 2007.