from Hacker News

The Linux Kernel May Finally Phase Out Intel I486 CPU Support

by axelfontaine on 10/23/22, 9:53 PM with 5 comments

• by dusted on 10/24/22, 9:46 AM

  It's probably not a problem, nice thing is that the existing kernel sources will stay available, so even if special systems need to run on 486, they can always build kernels.

  There's probably no intersection where 486 legacy systems are going to be in need of kernel features that are not already implemented.

  In that unlikely event, it may still be possible to backport said feature to the last 486 compatible kernel.

• by TillE on 10/23/22, 10:20 PM

  > Not that I'm convinced most distros even do 32-bit development anyway these days.

  32-bit is essentially dead outside of weird scenarios like companies still running Windows XP. Even the cheap Android phones should all be 64-bit these days.

  So unless you really need to support old hardware (or microcontrollers I guess), it means you can now confidently do fun stuff like cramming data into the 64-bit user data pointer in callback APIs.