How old is the oldest PC you still have? I still have my first PC with a Cyrix chip and 32MB of RAM that I bought in 1998. At that time, the Intel 486 (i486) chip was already 9 years old. However, this legendary chip is still supported by the Linux operating system. But starting with the Linux 7.1 kernel, it will finally be discontinued.
Linus Torvalds himself has stated that there is “zero reason” to maintain support for the i486 CPU. Maintaining support for this old hardware only hinders modern kernel development because the compatibility code for this old CPU is complicated and sometimes causes problems that take up developers’ time. Although launched in the 80s, production of the i486 was only discontinued in 2007.
For those who still want to use i486, they can continue to use the existing LTS kernel. The i486 chip received legendary status as the first to have 1 million transistors (1.2 million transistors in total) and was marketed using the famous slogan Intel Inside. It opened the era of Intel PCs used for multimedia and video games, which also became the cornerstone for the launch of the Intel Pentium series in 1993.
