I was looking for a lightweight OS to run on old Asus Eee PC 1005 HA, which uses a 32-bit Intel Atom N270 processor. I installed Void Linux (https://voidlinux.org/).
I may give DSL 2024 a try and see how it compares.
Void Linux is great for minimal installs. Gentoo fits the bill nicely too. Both allow for small init systems and, at least in the case of Gentoo, multiple bootloaders and initramfs tools.