[StreakyCobra]

There are other distributions better suited (even specialized) to be run on old hardware.

[jonathonf]

Which ones provide a similar approach to Arch?

A six-year-old 32-bit processor (e.g. an Atom in an EeePC 901 or HP Mini 311c) is more than capable of running a modern desktop system.

[StreakyCobra]

For a "similar" approach, I would opt for a slackware or a gentoo.

I understand that some people would like to keep Arch 32 bit for their use cases. But as any open source project, the developer are mostly working on it on their spare time, you can not force them to work on anything. Having followed a little bit the discussion on the mailing list [1], I don't remember having seen a lot of objection among the developers. Also, they encourage the creation of a community around i686 [2]:

     However, as there is still some interest in keeping i686 alive, we would like to encourage the community to make it happen with our guidance. The arch-ports mailing list and #archlinux-ports IRC channel on Freenode will be used for further coordination.

So if there are people willing to do the job, Arch will still be usable on 1686.

[1] https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-dev-public/2016-D... [2] https://www.archlinux.org/news/phasing-out-i686-support/

[rev]

Debian testing is similar in "rollingness", Slackware and Alpine are similar in the sense of "no frills". OpenBSD is a good non-Linux choice to try out.

[km3k]

FYI It's actually 8 years old for the EeePC 901 and the last 32-bit Atoms came out in 2009.

[DanBC]

The processors are now 64 bit, but the low ram means you're going to suffer if you use a 64 bit OS.

Also, for some of these machines they use a 32 bit UEFI, so even if you want to use a 64 bit OS you'll need some weird tinkering to get it installed.

[jonathonf]

I erred on the side of caution. :)

I've successfully run Arch on a set of 10 EeePC 901s for a club. Linux plus Arduino programming = awesome kids.

[DanBC]

There are brand new machines. Some haven't been released yet.

They come with a tiny bit of ram 2 gb, 4 gb if you're lucky.

The processor is 64 bit, but because of the small ram you'll suffer with a 64 bit OS. (Both Microsoft and Arch wiki agree here).

[simplyluke]

I don't think arch has ever been particularly focussed on writing an OS for the least performant hardware in circulation.

[mastax]

The "correct" solution to this problem is the x32 ABI [1]. I wouldn't be surprised if it's not well supported in the real world, however.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X32_ABI