Theoretical oldest thinkpad to support gentoo x86?

[nicefisher]

I want to get an old thinkpad for running a modern Linux on just because I think it would be funny
I already have Gentoo on my X60s, X61, and X220, so figuring out how to install it isn't an issue as I'm very familiar. I can also do all the compilation on another computer with the target architecture of the thinkpad to not spend days or weeks on just compiling the os.

On the gentoo website, it says for the minimal ISO, 256MB ram and a i486 cpu is required. I have extra PC100, PC133, DDR, DDR2 ram, so the ram amount isn't a problem.

What I'm curious is:
What is the line of thinkpads that's i486 or newer? I looked it up and Wikipedia says i486 is from 1989 but was manufactured up until 2007, so I don't know where to start. Whatever it is has to have that 256MB ram support, unless gentoo doesn't actually need that and it's only for the installation media, if so I can use 128mb which I think I have.
Would pentium 2 be i486? Pentium 1?

Also, Linux may be dropping i486 support eventually, so are there any i586 or i686 thinkpads that are older than the X60s I already have running 32 bit gentoo?

[axur-delmeria]

IIRC the very first Thinkpads already had a 486-class processor, though some have the IBM 486SLC which may be closer to a 386 (in terms of CPU instructions) than an actual 486. The real question is whether the kernel still supports plain 486, because Linus Torvalds himself thinks it may be time to drop it and that was back in 2022.

In any case, Thinkwiki has hardware specs of the ancient Thinkpad models: https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:Models

There's also this page: https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Intel_486

[mikemex]

I hope you're sitting in a pile of retro-stuff because I wouldn't be able to pull that out at this point even if I wanted. I don't think I have any IDE drive at this point, or a PCMCIA network card, a Laplink cable... even if I had one, what would I plug it to?

486... man, that's big words in 2024. It's been what, like 35-40 years now? I know the first Pentium was released in the early 90s...

[nicefisher]

I dunno I guess I'm just crazy bored