Debian i386 architecture now requires a 686-class processor

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5 points·progval··8 comments

The most recent CPU affected by this is probably the AMD Geode, which has had a stupidly long production run (and I think is still in production) for billions of embedded devices and doesn't quite implement the full 686 instruction set.

I played with Geode and Debian some time ago (over one year, which means in the hazy past as far as I'm concerned --- not good with dates ;), and they were not supported already. I forgot the details and when it happened exactly, but they're not full 586 as expected by Debian i386 builds. Some needed instruction is missing.

Looks like it is OpenBSD or FreeBSD for my old 200 mhz Pentium/MMX gateway box with 32 megs of memory. Which refuses to die.

Intel Pentium not supported in Debian stretch???

That's really bad. There are people still using that, especially in academic environment.

I guess they mean the original Pentium. Is that still actively used?

Hm... I thought it was about the Intel Pentium series.

It is, the original one, the Pentium (translates roughly to '5') which actually gave a symbolical name to the _5_86

The name Pentium is now used for relatively cheap CPUs, these CPUs will remain functional, as they are not 586.

The following wiki page calls it "P5"-based CPUs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Pentium_micropro...

The first 686 CPU was the Pentium Pro, which despite the name was a full redesign. The earliest consumer variant would be the Pentium II.

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