antiX
Debian for machines Debian gave up on.
antiX is a Debian derivative built 32-bit first, free of systemd, shipping window managers where other distributions ship desktops. It’s in my life for one reason: Owl targets old netbooks, and Debian stopped putting out i386 ISOs with Trixie. antiX still does.
The continuity is the whole appeal. Debian underneath means apt install cargo libsdl2-dev does the same thing on a netbook as it does on my workstation, so I build Owl on the target machine instead of cross-compiling to it. The one-toolchain-everywhere idea survives on hardware Debian itself has let go of.
There’s a happy accident buried in that install. The libsdl2-dev dependency chain drags in libdrm-dev, libgbm-dev, and libegl-dev, which are exactly what SDL’s KMSDRM backend needs at runtime. Installing the compiler quietly installs the video path the appliance will eventually run on.
It also ships non-free firmware by default, which on hardware this old is the difference between a working laptop and a project. The wifi came up on its own on the netbook I’ve installed it on. I have a few more in a pile to try.
No systemd
antiX picks its init at boot, runit by default, with sysVinit and several others on offer. What I care about is the absence. An appliance is meant to power on into an editor, and there’s nothing here that wants to argue about it.
Debian dropped i386 for reasons I understand: almost nobody is running it, and the build and test burden is real. antiX picked it up anyway, and keeps picking it up, release after release. That work is why there’s a netbook on my desk running a current operating system with a current compiler on it, and not a machine I have to apologize for.