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Comment by chalst | Hacker News Reader

It's pretty cool to get an up-to-date Linux working on such old hardware but I get the impression this kind of thing is going to get harder to do with the major distributions dropping support for 32 bit x86. I've been using NetBSD with older hardware.

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Most distributions already don't support a 486 anymore. For example, Debian dropped support for Pentium with Stretch (2017). And support for 486 was dropped in Jessie (2015). 386 support was dropped with Sarge (2005).

Slackware still does, but I think it's the last distribution to do so that still deserves to be called major.

http://www.slackware.com/install/sysreq.php

As far as i know slackware will not boot on a 486 since some time (14.0 ?) because the kernel or glibc is compiled using instructions for later processors.

It's more about whether the kernel retains support for 486. I wonder how many people are still using the platform actively? Or is it just hobbyists at this stage. If no-one is using it I think the kernel devs would drop support. Though perhaps Linus has a soft spot for old x86s specifically :-)

AIUI, the Linux kernel only dropped 386 because it was getting unworkable to maintain the SMP code for it. Perhaps support could be reintroduced, limited to single-core machines (no SMP support in the kernel configuration) only. Of course it would mostly be useful as a proof of concept, but the 386 is a very well-understood architecture nowadays so that would definitely have some merit.

NetBSD still works on early 1980's VAXes.

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