“This tree removes ancient-386-CPUs support and thus zaps quite a bit of complexity […] which complexity has plagued us with extra work whenever we wanted to change SMP primitives, for years. Unfortunately there’s a nostalgic cost: your old original 386 DX33 system from early 1991 won’t be able to boot modern Linux kernels anymore. Sniff. I’m not sentimental. Good riddance.” Almost 21 years of support for a professor. Not bad.
The first PC we got at home, with hoping 2 MB RAM and 40 MB harddisk!
Already a world of change from the Amstrad PCW 1512 systems used at school.
A lot of embedded developers are going to be upset.
Intel was still producing 386 and 486 processors until 2007 and it was largely used in embedded devices.
Sure, new embedded projects will use cpu that has not been manufactured for 5 years, let alone requiring the latest kernel. It is not like older versions of the kernel will vanish overnight.
There are plenty of existing devices that might use it. I have no idea on the embedded support. Pretending it doesn’t exist is being an arsehole. They were obviously wanted from 1985 to 2007, so I think there are a fair few in existence.
I can understand why Linus wanted to get rid of it. I been coding on a new web project that is only modern web browsers and it has been like taking the shackles away.
EDIT: http://www.reghardware.com/2006/05/18/intel_cans_386_486_960_cpus/
They were still being actively used for ages.
Edited 2012-12-13 00:34 UTC
I love OSNEWS, get downvoted for stating the following:
* That these old CPUs were used in embedded devices.
* That there are a lot still in existence that may still need support.
FFS
Oh come on! No one is using a 3.7 kernel on anything important.
Probably not but they are most likely back porting patches if they need them … this will make it harder.
I found exactly 1 on sale on ebay: http://www.ebay.ca/sch/i.html?_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=windows…
Not particularly useful or practical for any project that require more than a prorotype. I believe it proves the point the parent you replied to made.
[edit: the post ended in the wrong thread for a reson or another, it was about the windows 3.11 licence being available second hand]
Edited 2012-12-13 01:17 UTC
No one does that either! No one goes around patching microwaves and washing machines.
You realise linux 2.4 has been supported and updated until last year, right?
Well, you claimed that there were a lot of developers using these chips. Which is silly, since Those CPUs had not been produced for over 5 years. And for the most part intel was not really making new 386/486s as much as they were clearing out inventory, that they had to keep due sourcing clauses from contracts with military/gov clients.
No one in their right mind would run a modern 3.x Linux kernel on a 386 part anyway.
PS. I did not downvote you btw.
No, you get downvoted for saying that removing support for 80386 in a kernel tree that will never be run on 80386 is “being an arsehole”.
Linux has dropped support for something it has had for over twenty years….. Given your posting history I find that somewhat amusing.
Given your inability to understand an argument, I find it amusing when you post.
why would they continue to use such an inefficient processor? ARM is much much much better for those systems.
It doesn’t really matter on some machines some are large beasts like washing machines.
I guess it matters now
If you have something like, let’s say an aircraft flight computer, or anything that needs to be 100% reliable, you don’t want to make any changes to the hardware or software design unless it’s absolutely necessary to prevent the reliability being affected by software changes, or even bugs in the hardware (embedded chips for military/avionics applications tend to be older models which have been refined to get rid of errata detected during production for mainstream markets)
This leads to all sorts of problems – There was a rumour a few years ago that NASA was buying up stocks of original IBM PCs (and clones) off eBay because it needed some 8088s for some testing equipment for the space shuttle, and it couldn’t get them anywhere else. The folks who manufacture and support the F-22 Raptor jet have the problem whereby the onboard computers use i960s, and the development suite only runs on VAX/VMS.
But I doubt any of the above run Linux, these chips were probably kept in production for 15 years to support things that predated Linux.
Edited 2012-12-13 10:56 UTC
then by your own argument, no one using a 386/486 in such a system would care about Linux dropping support for their CPU since they are probably still on a version that is drastically old.
You do understand that nothing stops developers from maintaining 3.7.x until their last i386 chip dies, right?
… Much like they did w/ 2.4 until the ***interest*** in maintaining it dropped.
Let alone the fact that all the embedded users around me (and I know quite a lot of them) either use ARM or ATOMs these days.
I would venture and guess that the only one upset about this move is, well, you.
Feel free to maintain your own kernel tree. Trust me, its not that hard.
– Gilboa
Ever consider that they may be running an embedded OS that isn’t Linux based?
Make that proCessor
WHAT’S NEXT, 486? ITANIUM?
WHERE DO YOU DRAW THE LINE, LINUS? COMMUNISM?
I think Linus wouldn’t mind dropping Itanium, let’s just say he does not have a very high regard of Itanium. 😉
The beauty of free software like Linux is that you can still use your 386, because you can always download old versions of the OS freely from the web. In contrast, you can’t legally acquire copies of old commercial software, like old versions of Windows.
There will probably even remain some specialist distros that combine the last i386-compatible kernel with the latest packages. Hell, some distros even go as far as using the 2.4 kernel in the name of backward compatibility already (ie. Damn Small Linux).
If it’s holding Linux back, I’m glad it’s being removed from the kernel. Those machines are ancient, rare, falling apart if they haven’t done so already, and really not good for much of anything here in late 2012.
Yes you can. You can still buy a license of Window 3.1 if you wish to, just not from Microsoft … it will be a second hand one.
Edited 2012-12-13 00:32 UTC
I don’t know about way back in the Windows 3.1 days, but I do know that Microsoft only allowed changing ownership of their Windows XP licenses one time. Either way, every bit of Win3x is creaky, old, and just plain outdated… going back that far would be insane even if the license did allow it. At that point you might as well go for plain old DOS, and FreeDOS would be a better choice than probably any version of MS-DOS in most cases. Or, hell, probably any past proprietary commercial variant of DOS for that matter.
Well, if you’re running a 386 you’re probably not going to use XP anyway. You’ll be looking at Windows 3.x/95/98 and even if you can’t get license just torrent it. It’s not likely anyone gives a shit if you torrent Windows 3 or 95.
Don’t call Win 3.1 old and creaky, even the first version of Windows Vista still had some Win 3.1 bits. 😉
That transaction may be rather “iffy” from a legal stand point, however.
Not in the EU. Over here, a software ‘license’ is, as a matter of law, deemed to be a sale. Anyone who buys software has a complete and unrestricted right of resale, and any provision to the contrary in a license agreement has no legal effect. See Article 4(2) of the Computer Program Directive, and the ECJ’s decision in Usedsoft v Oracle. So you’re perfectly within your rights to purchase a used Windows 3.11 license on eBay (or anywhere else).
I’m glad to hear the EU has saner legal approaches. Here in the US, ebay tends to consider the sale of microsoft licenses to be verboten since they (microsoft) have used heavy handed approaches to discourage individuals from reselling them.
Some (US mainly) software vendors have been trying to turn software licenses more into a “renting” contract than an actual document of ownership.
I’ve held on to a Windows 95 disc and license, two Windows 98 discs and licenses, a Windows XP Home disc and license, and a BeOS 5.0 Pro disc. I bought all of them new. One of the Win98 sets is OEM so it’s legally tied to a machine that died long, long ago, but I don’t think Microsoft will mind me running it on the only machine in my collection old enough to use it.
I’m not sure why I still have them; even the XP set is unnecessary as I have XP Mode on my Windows 7 workstation. I suppose one day they will go on eBay (except that pesky OEM Win98 set, and BeOS of course) but for now they stay in a drawer out of sight and mind.
My point with all of that nostalgia being: Yes you can legally acquire old commercial software, you just have to be vigilant about licensing. As long as the license permits a transfer of ownership and the original owner can be verified, you won’t be breaking any rules. Besides, most software more than fifteen or so years old is considered abandoned by their publishers for anything but trademark infringement or reverse engineering. That doesn’t necessarily apply to the gaming world (see GoG.com for an awesome example of resurrecting old games the right way) but otherwise it’s common knowledge.
And none of this is meant to take away from your first sentence. Free software is a beautiful thing, for the reason you stated and so many more.
Have you ever tried running a 2.6.x or 3.x kernel on a 386 or 486? It’s miserable. They use about twice the RAM of a 2.4.x kernel, and the 2.4.x tree didn’t get its last update until last year. This makes me a little sad from a nostalgic point of view, but if Linus isn’t upset his original Linux machine won’t work with a current kernel, I guess nobody else has the right to complain.
Wasn’t the 386 the first CPU to ever run Linux? Kinda sad in that sense.
My first PC with a Microsoft OS (DOS) was also a 386SX, iirc. Massive upgrade (both cost and specs) over our 286 which had DR-DOS. Ran Wing Commander like a champ.
First time I ever edited a file was on a 386 as well. Autoexec.bat and config.sys, trying to squeeze out every last bit of EMM386 and HIMEM to run games.
Edited 2012-12-12 22:47 UTC
AFAIR 386SX == 386 w/ 16bit memory bus.
I ran Linux 0.something on a IBM 386SX without issues.
– Gilboa
don’t lie to us
all you wanted was the fully voiced intro and stars in the background in WC2
QEMM FTW! Man, back in the …uh…ok, really bad days that I don’t miss at all.
I absolutely think this is the right move. While support for old machines is definitely an advantage for Linux, is anybody actually trying to boot a modern distro like Ubuntu or Fedora on a 386? No! Anybody who needs a machine that old for some reason does not also need the most modern software. I wouldn’t mind if they dropped 486 support. We’re coming up on 20 years since the introduction of the Pentium. Naturally, there will be a very vocal minority that feels removing 486 support signifies the start of the apocalypse, but I think the actual re-world impact of such a move would be negligible.
Well they actually could, anyone looking to make their own unlicensed x86 based CPU can already start at the i586 iirc, theres a little known x86 manufacturer called Xcore86 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xcore86 that produces 1Ghz i586 based SoCs with DDR2 and PCIe support.
The board looks pretty interesting http://www.vortex86dx.com/?page_id=286
Reminds me of the AMD Geode based thin client I have in the closet. 16MB of onboard storage with no upgrade path there (proprietary flash based “disk”) so it’s limited to a 2.4 series Linux based OS, or its original WinCE software.
For a time I had Tiny Core Linux running on it, and it was very fast for what it was. But it had no practical use once I got my first Raspberry Pi so now it collects dust.
If it were me I would drop 32-bit x86 altogether, but I guess that is too radical a step at the moment and I guess someone is probably still using 32-bit machines.
Yeah, that would be too soon – only 2 or 3 years ago Intel was still selling 32bit CPUs (netbook Atoms); not sure if all mobile Atoms (in phones running Android) are 64 bit…
Then there’s also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X32_ABI & https://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/ project, apparently from Intel (for mobile phone Atoms?), which I guess depends somewhat on the continuing existence of 32bit x86 support in Linux.
So does this mean that they will stop calling 32bit distro versions i386? I always found that odd. You couldn’t possible run a modern distro on a 386 yet they called it that.
Plenty of distros had moved on to i686 as the minimum ISA revision for a while now.
Noooooooooooo!!!
I’m still get confused everytime I need to type arch=i686 instead of arch=i386 when using (my) build system
*
– Gilboa
* … now you kids get off my lawn!
Edited 2012-12-13 06:24 UTC
It’s sad to see support for retro stuff dropped. Then again, if it hinders progress and it’s not likely a 386 is used for modern and serious stuff.
If you’re in to DOS a 386 and 486 can run old games and applications very fine.
DOSbox can probably do that even better
(and on, say, a laptop – on the move …imagine some games in the train; I have a dream of playing Diablo or maybe Dungeon Keeper or Carmageddon with some nuns sitting right by)
You have some strange fantasies!
It was a 286 with 16mhz and 20MB HD
Anyway, i dont mind either.
Im rather happy they provide ARM Multiplatform support.
Let the 386 rest in pieces. It was my second PC (Mainboard and CPU upgrade) and it did its work.
It makes room for something new and removes the bloat. I can understand how it is to support legacy stuff (well, im also working on a web project where we HAVE to support IE7) and i wish we could drop IE7.. hell even IE at all.
Wow, now I feel old. My first personal computer — though not a “PC” by IBM’s measure — was a Ti 99/4a for my 5th birthday. It was the first of only two times my parents could afford to get us nice stuff, and I cherished it. I wish I still had it; it disappeared in a move across the country a few years later.
My first was a little Tandy connected to a cassette player. Ah spending 30 minutes waiting for a game to load. Those were the days.
Yah. My 1st was an Atari 800XL with the cassette drive and the Atari Star Raiders cartridge,which still beats the hell out of 95% of today’s games…..
I said my first PC
My first computer was a C64 and then an Amiga 500
Well, terminology-wise, the C64 and the Amiga were PCs too. It’s not like IBM invented the wheel (OK, maybe they did; but not home computers).
Anyway, I went C64 -> 386 DX. It was a huge leap, esp. after I got some of the contemporary games like Eye of the Beholder.
Home Computer != PC
This is an age old argument. Most of us old fogies consider any consumer class computer to be the literal of PC, that is, personal computer. Younger folks who grew up in the “Mac vs PC” era think a PC is a computer that runs Windows.
Then there are the ones who feel that since IBM coined “PC”, it should apply only to IBM compatibles (x86) no matter the OS.
We’re all right, and we’re all wrong. I think that about covers all the bases.
And IBM wasn’t the first using the term; IIRC that was HP.
Plus, my C64 has “Personal Computer” on its case…
PS. Like this one http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Commodore_C64C_Nahaufnahme.J…
PPS. http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml HP 9100A (though the list goes too far back after that, IMHO)
Edited 2012-12-15 13:42 UTC
But we have many more good games now. 95+% of past ones are also trash.
Not being able to run current kernels on ancient 386’s is not going to cause civilization to crumble. Nobody in their right mind would want to anyway. Beyond that all the kernels that do work with 386’s aren’t going to stop doing so and aren’t going to disappear from existence. Anyone with a 386 that wants to run linux will surely still be able to.
I still have my 386SX-25 with the 80387 with 32Mb RAM. Although “back in the day” it only had 5Mb (4x1024kb + 4x256kb). This makes me sad, being an avid retro-computing enthusiest, stripping back, compiling and fiddling on the old girl and several other machines has been one of the pointless pleasures in my life
I bought this specific machine’s mobo + processor in really early 1992 when I first read about Linux because my NECV20 wasn’t going to cut it past Xenix 8086.
Are you sure? The 386sx only supported 16MB RAM (24 bit address bus).
It’s theoretically possible. Back then some computers used “expanded memory”, where you might have a pool of RAM (e.g. 256 blocks of 64 KiB) that the CPU can’t access and a small number of those block/s could be switched into the CPU’s address space (e.g. so that the CPU could access any 2 of the 64 KiB blocks at a time).
For example; you could have “almost 16 MiB” of normal RAM that uses “almost 16 MiB” of the CPU’s address space; plus another 16 MiB of “expanded RAM” that only uses 128 KiB of the CPU’s address space.
– Brendan
Even if there are no 383 machines ever, it gives me a bad sentimental feeling when the linux kernel removes support for some hardware.
I guess it is technically a good move in terms of programming or whatever but it kinda breaks my heart
Call me a softy maybe but I always felt linux meant freedom no matter where and on whatever hardware
Feel free to call me an idiot
Edited 2012-12-14 13:38 UTC