news
"Linux Still Adding Support for Sega Dreamcast’s GD-ROM from the '90s" But Removing i486 Support
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It's FOSS ☛ Even in 2026, Linux Is Still Adding Support for Sega Dreamcast’s GD-ROM from the '90s
Linux continues to surprise. Linux kernel saw a new patch that adds support for Sega Dreamcast’s GD-ROM, a ’90s-era console technology that refuses to fade away.
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Linux devs start removing support for 37-year-old defective chip maker Intel 486 CPU — head honcho Linus Torvalds says 'zero real reason' to continue support
Linux kernel developers appear to have started to dismantle support for the legendary defective chip maker Intel 486 CPU.
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It's FOSS ☛ The Linux Kernel is Finally Letting Go of i486 CPU Support
The support remained in the GNU/Linux kernel all these years after every other major platform dropped it.
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The Register UK ☛ The end of Linux i486 support looks nigh
Slated for the 7.1 merge window is a patch that veteran Linux kernel contributor Ingo Molnar queued up at the end of March, but which went widely unnoticed until over the weekend. If merged, the patch would begin phasing out support for 80486-generation chips by removing the M486, M486SX, and MELAN configuration options from Kconfig, effectively preventing new upstream kernels from being configured specifically for 486-class systems.
5 more articles about this:
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Ghacks ☛ Linux Kernel 7.1 Moves to Drop i486 Support for the First Time Since 2012
A patch proposed by Linux kernel developer Ingo Molnar aims to remove support for 80486-generation processors from the GNU/Linux kernel during the 7.
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Dolphin Publications B V ☛ End nearby for i486 support in the Linux kernel
The Linux kernel is about to say goodbye to a piece of very old hardware. The merge queue for version 7.1 includes a change that marks the beginning of the phase-out of support for i486 processors.
According to The Register, the patch comes from Ingo Molnar, an experienced kernel developer and maintainer who has been active in the Linux community for decades. He proposed the change in late March, though it didn’t receive wider attention until later. The core of the proposal is relatively simple: specific configuration options for 486 systems will be removed from the kernel configuration. As a result, it will no longer be possible to explicitly build new kernels for these older processors.
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GigaZine ☛ Linux developers are beginning to end support for the 37-year-old Intel 486 processor.
It has been revealed that Linux has begun ending support for the Intel 486 processor, which was released in 1989. Linux developer Linus Torvalds said, 'There is no reason to waste a single second on support.'
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Hackaday ☛ Intel 486 Support Likely To Be Removed In Linux 7.1
It remains to be seen whether 2026 is really the year when Linux says farewell to the Intel 486 after doing so for the Intel 386 back in 2012. We cannot really imagine that there’s a lot of interest in running modern Linux kernels on CPUs that are probably older than the average Hackaday reader, but we could be mistaken.
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PC Gamer ☛ 28 years after the final Intel 486 desktop CPUs rolled off assembly lines, Linux is finally dropping support for it
It's a given that the question "What's the oldest computer you can run modern Linux on?" would produce a more gratifying answer than "What's the oldest computer you can run modern Windows on?" given Windows 11's draconian hardware requirements. But I have to say I had no idea the answer to the former question dated back to the 1990s—or, depending on your perspective, the 1980s. Alas, all computers must eventually make their way to the great e-waste center in the sky, as Phoronix reports that the Linux kernel maintainers are beginning to phase out support for Intel's legendary 486 platform.
Late coverage:
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Linux pulls support for ancient CPU — unsurprisingly, Linus Torvalds says there is 'zero real reason' to keep a 37-year-old Intel 486 CPU going
Linux kernel developers have begun removing support for the Intel 486 CPU, a processor first introduced in 1989.
The move comes as modern Linux distros have grown increasingly resource-intensive, making continued compatibility with decades-old CPUs both technically challenging and strategically unnecessary.