FreeBSD 12.2 has been released. Changes include updates for the wireless stack for better 802.11n and 802.11ac support, the latest versions of OpenSSL and OpenSSH, and much more. On top of the changes comes an announcement in the release notes of a change for the i386 versions of FreeBSD, starting with FreeBSD 13.0.
Starting with FreeBSD-13.0, the default
CPUTYPEfor the i386 architecture will change from486to686.This means that, by default, binaries produced will require a 686-class CPU, including but not limited to binaries provided by the FreeBSD Release Engineering team. FreeBSD 13.0 will continue to support older CPUs, however users needing this functionality will need to build their own releases for official support.
This won’t affect most users, but people with very specific needs should take note.
NOOOOO, how will I run FreeBSD on my fleet of 486, Pentium and Pentium MMX machines now? Don’t tell me I have to upgrade to Pentium Pro/II already.
You’ll only need to upgrade 1 machine to a PPro or newer. Then run buildworld/buildkernel on there with CPUTYPE?=486 (or pentium, or pentium-mmx), export /usr/obj via NFS, mount that on your fleet of 486/P5 systems, and run installkernel/installworld to do the upgrade.
Easy-peasy. For the adventurous, you can use “make release” to build your own installation ISOs if you need to install onto “new” 486 systems.
I want to do the build on an actual 486, but the previous version hasn’t finished building yet…
No, IT’s NECESSARY…about time freebsd moving the ball to our modern parts..now wine folks can finally get this working and on the way for DXVK and VULKAN support next
You can install 12.2 and build your custom system from then on, if you have the patience.