Linux kernel removing 486 support

[CNK]

I saw that this fix might be related to a regression introduced in TCL 16 where I think I saw you reported it would not boot on a VIA C7 CPU. Are you able to verify whether this patch fixes the booting on C7 as well?

I think I did try my stripped-down 486-patched kernel build on the VIA C7 in case one of the kernel features I disabled was causing the crash there, but it had the same problem.

As for the patch to fix the kernel for 486 CPUs, that was for code used early in the boot process before VIA C7 CPUs have problems. It's hard to see how it could be related at all.

[andyj]

Some of us remember this: https://www.networkworld.com/article/743590/opensource-subnet-how-removing-386-support-in-linux-will-destroy-the-world.html. 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. 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.

[CNK]

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.

Yeah well each to their own. That description fits the 36 year old car that's my daily driver pretty well.

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.

Some programs like Firefox have required SSE2 for a long time already, but the range of programs one can really run on a 486 is limited anyway due to its performance. Firefox is now in the process of dropping 32-bit Linux support entirely, which unfortunately might be the next stage for some other software projects too.