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?
It seems that 18.04 was the last release for 32-bit x86 (i386): https://askubuntu.com/questions/1376090/latest-version-of-ubuntu-for-i386-architecture-32-bit
But you could just go for Debian which still supports it.
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.
Well, Debian has a 32-bit ISO, and since Ubuntu is based on Debian you may consider giving it a try?
From a recent search i made, with similar purpose, these may support x86 and are based on either Debian or Ubuntu: antiX, Q4OS, Slax; Zorin Lite, LXLE.
(I haven’t combed through the results yet so YMMV and there may be cadavers.)
