There is always netbsd, which prioritizes portability.
Whether you like it or not, linux is a commercial operating system primarily designed and built by people working for commercial entities, to solve commercial problems.
Nobody in the commercial world is running 486, and supporting old CPUs makes it harder to maintain and build features for modern hardware that commercial entities use.
dlachausse · 2h ago
It looks like NetBSD and FreeDOS are the last major operating systems that support 486s. Even OpenBSD and Minix require at least a Pentium processor.
polygot · 2h ago
Title is slightly misleading, it is not leaving behind 486 types of CPUs individually, but the "486 CPU".
dmd · 1h ago
Absolutely nobody was confused by this.
bmacho · 1h ago
I definitely was BUT I figured it out myself, without help.
Can most software even compile for 486? I don't think there's anybody out there testing their software for that target.
tester756 · 4h ago
Good.
Removing tech debt is important
volemo · 3h ago
I feel like at this point they could’ve waited more years just for bragging rights.
(I don’t mean to say 18 years is not brag worthy, but 20 rolls off the tongue better.)
Talinx · 1h ago
Well, actually... The LTS kernel with longest support before 6.15 is 6.1. It will be supported until December 2027 [1] which is a few months over 20 years after the last 486 CPU [2].
Whether you like it or not, linux is a commercial operating system primarily designed and built by people working for commercial entities, to solve commercial problems.
Nobody in the commercial world is running 486, and supporting old CPUs makes it harder to maintain and build features for modern hardware that commercial entities use.
Removing tech debt is important
(I don’t mean to say 18 years is not brag worthy, but 20 rolls off the tongue better.)
[1] https://www.kernel.org/category/releases.html
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20061009060120/http://developer.... as linked in the Ars Technica article