The openSUSE Tumbleweed is currently being developed with a target base of x86_64 (v1), but is gradually migrating to x86-64-v2. After the full transition to x86-64-v2, CPU instruction set extensions require CMPXCHG16B, LAHF-SAHF, POPCNT, SSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, and SSSE3.

This means raising the CPU bar, requiring Intel Nehalem or AMD Bulldozer newer CPUs. x86-64-v2 requirements limit support for Tumbleweed CPUs to Intel CPUs from the last 15 years or AMD hardware from the last 10 years.

This is a smart move for openSUSE / SUSE. In addition to openSUSE ALP requiring x86-64-v2, other distributions such as RHEL9 also require x86-64-v2, and even AVX already requires x86-64-v3.

In openSUSE’s announcement today about the x86-64-v2 transition, they did note that a community repository is being set up where x86-64 (v1) support can be maintained for users still using systems that are not supported today.

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