I’ve got an older machine that I’d like to give a second life. I’ve always been an Ubuntu fan in the past, but checking their site for a lightweight distri it looks like they’ve gone all 64 bit. Is that right? Can I still get a recent version for a 32-bit processor?
I’ve had luck with puppy Linux on 32-bit machines. I also got arch32 working on a few. Arch is a steepper learning curve as the arch-install script doesn’t work on 32. Related there’s quite a group keeping parabola working on all manner of systems including 32, if libre is more your style.
MX Linux is a nice Debian based distro that still supports 32-bit. Or you could use just Debian.
LMDE. Not Ubuntu based, but Debian based so its the closest I can think on the top of my head. It got 32 bit support and Cinnamon desktop.
Check out Antix, Debian based, and it’s primarily made for older devices and has a 32bit ISO
I second this suggestion. I have an old touchscreen PC from about 2001 with a Via Eden CPU, which is an incredibly feeble low-power processor that lacks some instructions that were common even in 32-bit days, and Antix was the only reasonably modern distro I could get to run on it.
