386SX / DX processors will be removed from the Linux kernel

I will never forget my 386SX-20, where Doom slowed down even in a small window, and my friends had cool 386DX-33. For the year we managed to save up for 386DX-40, already on it the game went full screen.



At about this time in October 1991, Linus Torvalds, who had returned from the army, was finishing up the first version of the new Linux kernel, which initially came out with the support of i386 processors. Maybe he himself worked on this, because the i486 was still too expensive: for example, the simplified model 486SX without a coprocessor came out in May 1991 at an initial price of $ 527 .



Intel released the 386DX processors until September 2007, after which it was forced to discontinue them due to low demand.



At the end of 2012, the Linux kernel was also decided to optimize and slightly clean the old code. Linus Torvalds approved pull request , according to which the support for i386 specifications will be removed from the core. They are used in AMD / Cyrix / Intel 386DX / DXL / SL / SLC / SX, Cyrix / TI 486DLC / DLC2, UMC 486SX-S, and NexGen Nx586 processors. By eliminating support for old CPUs, you can reduce the source code by 369 lines (56+ 425-).

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Linus even suggested going further into optimization and removing the arch / x86 / math-emu branch with emulating the old co-processors, which is necessary to support 486SX. But colleagues did not support this proposal: someone noticed that some 486SX clones are still in production.



In general, Linus has repeatedly said that he is very happy when they offer to remove some code, and not to add a new one.



One way or another, but the Linux 3.8 kernel, which will be released in two and a half months, you will not be able to run 386SX / DX on your computer, even by pressing the “turbo” button.