Thank you for the suggestion on Void. Void i686 IS fast! It is not for newbies and involves a lot of terminal commands but my 2008 Atom 330 based Nettop is up to date in 2026 and fast! As an additional bonus: I can simply unplug the SSD and plug it in my 2006 Core Duo T2250 HP laptop and it “just works!” even faster!
Great.
Only install the apps you need.
You may need to learn a bit about runit if you want to start services.
You will also need to learn the xbps package system … it is not difficult.
Tne Void documentation covers most things.