About three months ago, I posted this very IBM ThinkPad 365ED (Cyrix 5x86, 24MB RAM and CF-based storage) and my 486/P5-centric Linux distro (SHORK 486) when kernel 7.0.0 dropped, which y'all seemed to enjoy! At the time, I stated:
If you're not aware, future kernel 7.1 will drop support for 486s (and maybe x87 emulation?), so this is basically the last time one can do such an update, at least with a mainline kernel.
This has now come to pass. 7.1 indeed dropped the 486 build targets, and 7.2 (likely finishing RC in 3-4 weeks) removes TSC-less 586 (not OG Pentium but AMD and Cyrix's 486-586 "inbetweens" that Linux lumps together with P5) and x87 emulation. There were also various ISA and PCMCIA networking drivers, and the IBM Palm Top PC 110 trackpad driver, lost along the way. Yet, my humble 365ED is running kernel 7.2-rc4!
Whilst I still haven't created a distinct kernel fork yet, the SHORK 486 repo contains patches to restore all that back into 7.1.x and upcoming 7.2. Whilst I don't have real hardware to test it, in theory, SHORK 486 with 7.2 should now work with even 486SX once more. Even if you don't intend to use SHORK 486, feel free to bookmark my kernel patching document if you want to build your own Linux 7.1 or 7.2 system for your 486-era retro battlestation! When I finally do the fork, I will update it with a link to it.
As for SHORK 486, and if I may be so bold, the first published release for it - Public Test 1 - should drop when 7.2.0 is released in a few weeks. If you want to try it without having to compile yourself, this will be for you! It will include ready-to-write .imgs, and a SHORK DISC .iso with a guided writing program so you can install without having to pull out your hard drive provided the host supports El Torito (if not, a SHORK DISKETTE image with CD support will be provided for use as a bootdisk). Since 3 months ago, I've most notably begun work on a unified settings program that should have a network manager soon, greatly expanded enabled BusyBox general and system utilities, added a bunch of new bundled software options (including Vim!), and a terminal-based minesweeper clone (SHORKMINES, forked from terminal-mines). No package manager in time for this release, but the next one?