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386-DX/SX support nuked from Linux Kernel
61–70 of 89 posts
Re: 386-DX/SX support nuked from Linux Kernel
#62I never really got why back support should be an issue - its all x86 instructions, if only a subset of what is used today right? I'm curious to know exactly what makes supporting old cpus so hard.
Sorry, but how can you not get this? The smallest subset defines what you can use at least in the core. You have to add workarounds to make it work. Which takes up time of developers and increases the code complexity. Every configuration option increases the test complexity.
Therefore if an architecture is no longer needed then nuke it. What's the point of hanging on to 386? I doubt that any new machines today are shipped with 386 CPUs. Even embedded radiation hardened special systems are now having better CPUs, such as Pentium-compatible or some PPC.
And the systems still running are certainly not upgrading to a new kernel.
Re: 386-DX/SX support nuked from Linux Kernel
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
In 2000, someone gave me a 386 desktop that they were about to throw out, and I ran OpenBSD on it until 2005 or so. (I was a student, so getting new hardware was more of a big deal then.) To get it working I had to recompile the kernel (which I did on a "more capable" Celeron 366) without support for newfangled hardware such as USB and PCI in order to have enough memory to boot and log in in a tolerable amount of tim…
I still have an 8088 with a color display, dot matrix printer, math coprocessor, maxed out RAM (64 KB? I don't even remember) and a 10 MB hard drive + dual disk drives. I should see if it actually boots someday....
640KB was the max RAM. My first PC was the same configuration, except I had a 32MB drive. Oh! And towards the end I had both a CGA and Hercules card so I could have two screens.
Re: 386-DX/SX support nuked from Linux Kernel
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm into retrocomputing so these kinds of retirements always sting a bit. In realistic long term operations, deprecations don't hurt. I.e. your air traffic control system running on PA-RISC and HP-UX doesn't care that HP-UX only run on Itanium now. You keep running the old software and set up some kind of support schedule to keep the system patched during it's service life through the vendor or otherwise.
It makes me sad from a retrocomputing standpoint as well. I have a sun386i in storage that I always said I would port linux to one day. Oh well... I can't blame them for wanting to drop it though, not only do you not have the full range of atomic operations, but also the MMU doesn't respect the WP bit from kernelspace which means special code in copy_to_user() I wonder how long they will keep the 486SX alive now that…
> I would port linux to one day. Oh well...
You've still got all the old kernels that do support it. And Debian certainly has historical archives (http://www.debian.org/distrib/archive) and I'm sure other distros do too, if you want all the other linux architecture.
Re: 386-DX/SX support nuked from Linux Kernel
#65Wait you mean it won't run Linux now even if I press the turbo button?
Wow. I miss the turbo button. They should have been required for all computers shipping with Windows 98 through XP with the message -- "Push this button every 10 minutes if you haven't reformatted this computer after 6 months."
Re: 386-DX/SX support nuked from Linux Kernel
#66386-DX was my first PC. This is incredibly sad, even more so because it makes me realize I'm getting old!
I remember my first Gateway 2000 / 486 DX2 Tower. They computer was so big, all of my friends were envious.
Re: 386-DX/SX support nuked from Linux Kernel
#67The 386sx was a fun processor. Lack of a math coprocessor was fun to work around. I'm surprised support lasted this long.
All 386's lacked the math co-processor, the SX just had a 16-bit data bus.
Yep. The 486SX was the 486 with disconnected math processors that failed quality control. The coprocessor "487" upgrade chip was simply a fully working pin incompatible (only fit in the upgrade slot) 486.
On the 386 line, the SX/DX distinction was the equivalent of the 8088/8086 distinction for data bus width (NOTE: the 8086 was the wider processor, the cheaper 8088 was in the IBM PC).
Re: 386-DX/SX support nuked from Linux Kernel
#68386's were the first computers I ever used Linux on. Man. I will say this much, a 386 sx/16 was a large part of learning learn how to get so much done with so little resources. It's amazing how Linux was more efficient than windows even then, while the decade of driver drought was being bridged.
Isn't this the platform Linus used for Linux when he started too?
That's what Ingo is referring to. "Unfortunately there's a nostalgic cost: your [i.e. Linus'] old original 386 DX33 system from early 1991 won't be able to boot modern Linux kernels anymore. Sniff."
Turns out Linus is not the nostalgic type.
Re: 386-DX/SX support nuked from Linux Kernel
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
In 2000, someone gave me a 386 desktop that they were about to throw out, and I ran OpenBSD on it until 2005 or so. (I was a student, so getting new hardware was more of a big deal then.) To get it working I had to recompile the kernel (which I did on a "more capable" Celeron 366) without support for newfangled hardware such as USB and PCI in order to have enough memory to boot and log in in a tolerable amount of tim…
I loved my Celeron. I had a 300 which over clocked amazingly well to 450Mhz. In fact, those were the last days of my "dinking" with hardware. The Pentium and beyond offered such diminishing rewards that it wasn't worth it.
Current Sandy Bridge & Ivy Bridge "K" chips also overclock very easily (you can add more than 1 ghz to the max speed).
Re: 386-DX/SX support nuked from Linux Kernel
#70I wonder if this has implications for the Intel MIC, whose processors are not dissimilar to the 386. Maybe run a 64 cluster on a single chip?
This change affects specific architectures, without regard to how they perform.