alt Hacker NewsAre you confusing "386" with 32bit? 686 is the normal 32bit arch. 386 is something from the 1980's right?
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Linux ran fine on 386 chips - that was actually what it was originally developed on. But Intel added a bunch of functionality in the 486, Pentium, and Pentium Pro chips. At some point the powers that be didn't see any value in continuing to support pre-P6 chips anymore.
It was a bit of a strange decision since there were undoubtedly more 386, 486, and Pentium users than some of the platforms Linux continued to support, but that's the choice they made. But they weren't alone. Even NetBSD requires a 486DX or better.
AIUI Debian kept the i386 name for the arch even as their 32 bit requirements evolved.
i386 is the most common term used for 32 bit x86 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IA-32
When distros mention i386 support they often actually refer to i586 or i686, yes.
True i386 support would mean compatible with the original Intel 386 processor from 1985. The 486 added a few additional instructions in 1989 but things really changed with the Pentium in 1993 - that gave us i586 which is the bare minimum for most modern software today. Much software can still run on regular Pentiums today if compiled for it, but SSE2 optimizations requires at least a Pentium 4 or Core CPUs instead.
I play with retro PCs often and found OpenBSD's i386 target stopped supporting real 386 CPUs after the 4.1 release, and dropped support for i486 somewhat recently in 6.8. It now requires at least a Pentium class CPU, i586, though the arch is still referred to as i386 likely because it's a common proxy for "32-bit".