Linux kernel maintainers are following through on removing Intel 486 support
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.”
Too soon?
Linux kernel maintainers are following through on removing Intel 486 support
Linux devs think even one second spent on 486 support is a second too many.Andrew Cunningham (Ars Technica)
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Cătă 🇷🇴🇺🇦🇲🇩🇪🇺, yessikg and joshg253 like this.
cecilkorik
in reply to Powderhorn • • •Powderhorn
in reply to cecilkorik • • •cmnybo
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Powderhorn
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djsaskdja
in reply to Powderhorn • • •Powderhorn
in reply to djsaskdja • • •djsaskdja
in reply to Powderhorn • • •TehPers
in reply to djsaskdja • • •djsaskdja
in reply to TehPers • • •TehPers
in reply to djsaskdja • • •My point was more along the lines of online being impractical. Sure, you can still connect to servers running old software (in which case kernel updates aren't useful to you anyway), but anything with modern security or software is going to just not run at all on it, whether because the software is too heavy for the processor or because it simply was not compiled for it (and cannot be).
Point is, I think we both agree that the only reasonable usecase for these processors is offline or on a separate network (LAN/tunneled/etc).
yetAnotherUser
in reply to djsaskdja • • •Is it?
Just use Linux 6.12 with LTS until 2029 and Super LTS until 2036.
djsaskdja
in reply to yetAnotherUser • • •spit_evil_olive_tips
in reply to cecilkorik • • •uhhh...do you have any idea how much effort would be involved in maintaining a fork of the Linux kernel, just to preserve 486 support?
it's not.
it's a vanishingly small install base, because of how slow and limited those chips are. the 486 had a whopping 1.2 million transistors. compare that to the big list on this wikipedia page. a few that stand out:
transistor count isn't an exact proxy for performance, but with those orders of magnitude it puts into perspective just how underpowered that little 486 is going to be, for
... Show more...uhhh...do you have any idea how much effort would be involved in maintaining a fork of the Linux kernel, just to preserve 486 support?
it's not.
it's a vanishingly small install base, because of how slow and limited those chips are. the 486 had a whopping 1.2 million transistors. compare that to the big list on this wikipedia page. a few that stand out:
transistor count isn't an exact proxy for performance, but with those orders of magnitude it puts into perspective just how underpowered that little 486 is going to be, for anything you might try to do with it in 2026.
an original, first-generation Raspberry Pi will absolutely run circles around a 486. same with going to ebay or a local pawn shop / computer refurbisher and buying the absolute oldest/cheapest used laptop you can find.
for people who already have 486s and really want to keep them going, the current Debian release still supports 486, and it's supported until 2028 - meaning you have 2 more years of continuing to receive security updates and theoretically being safe to connect it to the internet.
and even after that, FreeBSD has "tier 2" support for 386 and higher, and NetBSD supports it as "tier 1"
and of course, nothing stops anyone from running an old kernel on their old hardware.
FreeBSD/i386 Project
The FreeBSD ProjectJohnEdwa
in reply to spit_evil_olive_tips • • •Powderhorn
in reply to JohnEdwa • • •DdCno1
in reply to Powderhorn • • •eleitl
in reply to spit_evil_olive_tips • • •pinball_wizard
in reply to eleitl • • •SteevyT
in reply to spit_evil_olive_tips • • •lefaucet
in reply to Powderhorn • • •Bet some government/industrial jobs are about to open up due to this :)
*Edit: added slash between government and industrial
Pommes_für_dein_Balg
in reply to lefaucet • • •Powderhorn
in reply to lefaucet • • •lefaucet
in reply to Powderhorn • • •Hehe good call, I meant for there to be a slash between gov't and industrial.
Gov't industrial jobs only exist in communist countries where capitalists aren't given their god-given /s right to maximize and take profits from any industrial process.
pinball_wizard
in reply to Powderhorn • • •Holy shit! 486 support was still in there? Damn. Wow. Nice.
I don't want to lose support for classic machines, but it's not like the previous versions of Linux will stop being available to put on old hardware. If we were purging archive copies of old Linux kernels, then I would be alarmed.
Edit: for some context - my grandma isn't going to get burned by this. She doesn't own enough 3.5" disks to fit a Linux Mint install onto, anyway.
Anyone (me probably, I love this shit), who wants to install Linux on a 486 today is probably going to do some research first, anyway.
what
in reply to pinball_wizard • • •