Hello Friends
As a summary of Linux distributions for 32 bits (from other post) we have the following:
PowerPCFeel free to add more if you know
Best to all
Thank you Manuel.
As usual with you it is thoroughly researched and up to date.
I am sure people with older computers will find it useful.
Thanks for the kind words … your feedback and by other friends in this network was crucial to create this post 
I added this topic to our list of usefil links
I found a couple more that were still 32 bits after doing a search.
MX‑21 Legacy edition still offers 32‑bit support
Slackware
Tiny Core
Thanks for the information Howard
I am going to check each one tomorrow and create a new “post” in this thread including the links.
Thank You
Great list - but - I will point out that NetBSD is not Linux - i.e. it’s very similar but it’s not Linux - it uses its own kernel, and is more similar to commercial UNIX than Linux is… and yeah - it uses a lot of the GNU utilities we’re familiar with from Linux…
Net and OpenBSD I think have much more architecture support than Linux… So it’s hardly surprising they still support i386…
Some in the OSS community don’t like the BSD license model, I think Richard Stallman is one… I don’t really care 
- even though I like RMS…
I kinda prefer FreeBSD to either Net or Open - because I’m more familiar with it - e.g. on TrueNAS, and I’ve installed GhostBSD with MATE desktop a few times (on a laptop, and in a KVM guest) - I don’t FreeBSD supports as many architectures - but - it’s the base of many commercial products - like MacOS, JuniperOS (on network switches and routers and security devices) and NetApp storage sits on a FreeBSD base (or is partially based on FreeBSD).
I think there are Linux ports for Sparc, but, OpenBSD has much better sparc support than Linux ever has…
This page shows 50 CPU architectures with Tier II support on NetBSD :
i.e. more than Linux - considerable more, probably…
I dont see any 8bit architectures ( eg z80). There were Unix ports to z80 once.
Are any of those listed 16 bit? I dont see any PDP’s or 286’s
I dont think anyone will miss them … just interested.
Yeah - I guess not… motorola 68k was mostly, often 16 bit (but later versions were 32 bit I think? Like the Amiga 500)… and 286 was effectively “24 bit” but mostly 16 bit…
I do remember that SCO OpenServer, and XENIX - had 286 versions… and yeah - I guess original UNIX ran on 8 bit stuff… But the first UNIX was for the PDP-11 right? And that was 16 bit…
I don’t think any of the BSDs run on 8 bit…
There’ve been various projects to create a UNIX like O/S for 8 bit platforms like Apple II and Commodore 64… But not BSD…
As a user and owner of older computers I welcome your list and look forward to its progression. My only concern is finding the software to run on older systems. Already on my linux mint 19 which is 32 bit and no longer available or supported when I run either google or firefox they both report newer versions are available which sadly dont run on 32 bit. Next stage will be some sites dont load or run correctly.
Perhaps add a table with your list of browser, email, office software that runs
My older machines are netbooks one of which died this week as the cmos battery which was really just capacitors not a battery gave up and unable to replace it
Yeah - you’re probably severely out of luck if you want a mainstream browser like Chrome/Chomium or Firefox on 32 bit…
I believe there are others - Midori maybe? And some of the minimal browsers like “Surf” or “w3m” to display html5 content - you’re probably outta luck playing streaming content however…
and you might still be able to find a copy of Firefox-ESR for 32 bit Linux…
Scoff +Cough + Cough! There’s always the solution of eschewing graphical browsers and using something like Links or Lynx (actually - I think w3m is terminal / tty only too)…
This from a Puppy Linux discussion :
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=12947
They list Firefox…
A few years back I got fed up of Firefox constantly updating and I was running it as a portable app (i.e. downloaded the x86_64 binary / tar / gzip - e.g. $HOME/sbin/firefox/firefox …
I think I did that 'cause it was messing up Citrix… i.e. one week Citrix would launch - the following not until I updated firefox… My solutions was “never update”…
I don’t do that any more - I let firefox get updated with my O/S…
I do that with all my applications saves problems
I really see no point in discussing 32bit!! I have an old 32bit Acer Desktop, about the only thing it will run is Windows XP, and forget the browser and going online, although it will run the MyPal browser, for what it is worth!!
There are people who still use a computer like in the 1980’s. … all CLI, no graphics, no internet, do calculations by running programs, write programs maybe in C or Pascal. One step better than a programmable calculator.
For most of my working life that was all computers were used for, but that was still useful.
32 bit pc’s is the top end of that world, and maybe the beginning of graphics and internet for PC’s.
Please, just put the old machines in storage, and give them a graceful ending !!