Did 12.04 completely drop support for pre-i686 processor architectures?

[Jt00]

I have a Compaq Presario 1244 with an AMD K6-2 processor that has an i586 architecture. When I try to upgrade from 10.04 to 12.04 it says that 12.04 is optimized for i686 and above architectures. I googled this, and I found that the developers of Ubuntu were talking about dropping support for pre-i686 processors. However, I thought I saw an alternate install for earlier processors on the ubuntu website, but I can't find it right now.
Is there an alternate install for pre-i686 chips, or is it i686+ from now on?

Edit: Found it here (http://releases.ubuntu.com/12.04/). The file in question is ubuntu-12.04-alternate-i386.iso. This name makes it seem like it would work, but I have heard otherwise.

[spcwingo]

As far as I know the only difference is that ubuntu now ships with a PAE enabled kernel by default. Most <= i586 processors didn't have this (IIRC). I would suggest installing from the non-pae mini.iso then installing whatever desktop you wanted on top of the base system. Keep in mind that this will require being connected to the internet during all install procedures as this will be a netinstall. You can download the non-pae mini.iso from here:

http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/non-pae/mini.iso

Then for example if you wanted to install the Unity desktop then enter:


sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

If you're looking to install a different desktop on top of the base just let me know and I'll help any way that I can.