{"id":240901,"date":"2026-05-07T08:20:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T12:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/07\/linux-drivers-for-the-amd-elan-socs-from-the-1990s-on-track-for-retirement\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T09:00:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T13:00:07","slug":"linux-drivers-for-the-amd-elan-socs-from-the-1990s-on-track-for-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/07\/linux-drivers-for-the-amd-elan-socs-from-the-1990s-on-track-for-retirement\/","title":{"rendered":"Linux Drivers For The AMD Elan SoCs From The 1990s On Track For Retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Linux Drivers For The AMD Elan SoCs From The 1990s On Track For Retirement<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.phoronix.com\/news\/AMD-Elan-Linux-Driver-Removal<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-07 08:20:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.phoronix.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Merged for the current Linux 7.1 cycle was beginning to phase out the Intel 486 processor support from the mainline kernel moving forward. That initial step with Linux 7.1 was dropping the various Kconfig options to allow compiling Linux kernel builds for targeting various i486 platforms. As part of that, the AMD Elan SoC configuration patches were dropped. The next step is proceeding on the AMD Elan side with beginning to remove the actual driver code.<\/p>\n

With Linux 7.1 the driver code remained for the various Intel 486 specific platforms and other i486 derived platforms, just removing the ability to compile the code. That effectively ends the support with being unable to compile for those targets and now for Linux 7.2+ the actual driver and other i486-specific removals can take place.
\n<\/p>\n

\"AMD<\/p>\n

It’s very unlikely anyone still running i486 systems are running mainline, upstream Linux kernel versions in 2026+. If there is anyone actively still using i486 in production with modern Linux kernels, they can always stick to using a Long Term Support kernel version like Linux 6.18 LTS.<\/p>\n

\"AMD<\/p>\n

This patch series posted yesterday begins removing the actual AMD Elan specific drivers. Sean Young who authored the patch series commented:
\n
“Now that AMD Elan support has been removed, remove the AMD Elan specific drivers too. I had a Technology Systems 5500 back in the early 2000’s and it was pretty slow back then – no need to support such ancient slow device. I wrote and patched some of these drivers so nice to see them removed at the end of their life cycle.”
\n
AMD Elan were 32-bit SoCs from the 1990s based on the Am486 architecture and geared for embedded systems. Elan came before the AMD Geode hardware. It’s also news this week of AMD Geode support set to be orphaned with no one left to maintain that code. But for AMD Geode at least while obsolete, the code is set to remain within the Linux kernel at least until the code falls into disrepair and proves to be too much of a maintenance…
\n
Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Linux Drivers For The AMD Elan SoCs From The 1990s On Track For Retirement https:\/\/www.phoronix.com\/news\/AMD-Elan-Linux-Driver-Removal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":240902,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.phoronix.net\/image.php?id=2026&image=amd_elan","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[71],"class_list":["post-240901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-linux","tag-linux"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240901"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240904,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240901\/revisions\/240904"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}