If you’re running Linux on 30-plus year old hardware, lend me your ears: in recent weeks the Linux kernel has been updated to no longer support Intel 486 and 586 processors. Here’s why it’s happening, and how you can check the CPU in your device.
Why Certain CPUs Are Losing Support
The latest versions of the Linux kernel, the software that undergirds all Linux distributions, no longer support 80486 (or i486) and several “Pentium” 586 (i586) processors essentially because of the work involved in their continued support. The people who develop the Linux kernel are, well, people. It was getting increasingly burdensome to maintain compatibility, and the workload was outweighing the benefit, especially when you consider how few people actually still use the processors now considered to be ancient.
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The i486 and i586 might not have been all-stars of computing, but they certainly competed with some.
Linus Torvalds, inventor of the Linux kernel, noted this as an issue back in 2022, and it was only with the May release of kernel 6.15 that the change was actually made.
Support for these processors amounted to 15,000 lines of code that is all now removed in the latest kernels and no longer requires maintenance from developers. Without that code, the Linux kernel installed on one of these CPUs isn’t going to work, and you’re going to be stuck with a very old brick of a computer.
Is Your CPU on the Chopping Block?
That leads us to whether you need to worry about the continued support of your computer. The short answer is: almost certainly no.
The processors we’re talking about debuted in the late 80s and mid-90s. That said, i486 processors were still being sold as late as 2007. If the computer you’re using is any newer than that, then you have nothing to worry about and can happily keep using Linux on your computer for the foreseeable future.
If you aren’t sure when your computer was made, though, and you suspect it could contain one of the doomed processors, then there are a few ways to check the CPU name. Either way, this will a good, simple exercise in getting comfortable with the terminal.
First, you can use the uname command with the -p or –processor option to see your processor’s type.
uname -p
Regrettably, I don’t have one of those seasoned processors to test this command on. You can see in my quite modern computer’s output the result is “x86_64”, indicating it has an x86 architecture with 64-bit computing capabilities. If I were using one of the CPUs being dropped, my research tells me the output would say something like “i486” or “i586”.
Another method is to use the lscpu command to get the model name and other info about the installed CPU.
lscpu
The top entry for your processor info will show the architecture, which would be i486 or i586 if it’s one of the unlucky ones.
You may have had to scroll up the terminal to find that info, though. As always, there are more efficient ways to do things in the Linux terminal. You can filter directly for your architecture name using the grep command.
lscpu | grep 'Arch'
Of course, there are usually graphical ways to check the processor. For example, on my KDE Plasma desktop, I can launch the Settings app and look at System Administration > About this System, and it will show me a processor name.
Let’s be realistic, though: if you’re using a processor from the 80s or mid-90s, you aren’t running a recent edition of the Plasma desktop environment. Any graphical desktop at all may be out of the question for you. Still, knowing where to find this info can come in handy in a lot of situations, like when buying or selling a used device.
Is It Time for an Upgrade?
If you’re one of the few folks using one of these CPUs, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is, unless you live on the bleeding edge of software, it’ll be a while until kernel 6.15 reaches you. Most Linux distros don’t come with the absolute latest kernel.
For example, I just installed the latest version of Debian Linux, and at the time of writing it’s still using kernel version 6.1.
However, just because a kernel version officially supports a processor doesn’t mean the distribution supplying it does. In fact, Debian dropped support for i486 and i586 CPUs almost a decade ago. If you happen to have an i386 processor, though, we still recommend Debian Linux because it’s one of the few distros that still maintains support for i386 CPUs.
Fortunately for i486 and i586 folks, at least two distros out there haven’t left you behind just yet. Slackware and Knoppix both still claim to support i486 processors and newer. I can’t speak from experience about how well they work in practice, but they’re both Linux distros well-established in the community, having been around since at least the early 2000s.
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Whenever you do have to replace your ancient hardware, though, and you don’t want to pay market price just to have a computer, I recommend checking out thrift stores and online marketplaces for deals on used but still usable computers. A “new” retro PC build can be a lot of fun, and maybe easier than you think.