The Linux kernel is moving toward removing AMD Elan SoC drivers, following the earlier removal of Intel 486 Kconfig build options in Linux 7.1. AMD Elan were 32-bit embedded SoCs from the 1990s based on the Am486 architecture. With no one realistically running mainline Linux on i486 hardware in 2026, the actual driver code is now being cleaned up for Linux 7.2+. The patch author, who originally wrote some of these drivers, notes the hardware was already slow in the early 2000s. Users still needing i486 support can fall back to an LTS kernel like Linux 6.18. Separately, AMD Geode support is also being orphaned, though its code will remain until it becomes a maintenance burden.
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