There is a very nice new Linux distribution that comes with a huge amount of software. It is called PsychOS, this is intended for older machines. The kernel is compiled for a 686 CPU architecture instead of x86_64, but it would be perfect to bring an old Pentium 4 back to life and allow it to run as a multimedia machine. It ran very fast in a Qemu instance when I tried it out. The distro is a 3.8 GiB live DVD image, that allows running on a machine to try it out and test hardware compatibility before installation.
The Xfce4 desktop that PsychOS uses is very fast and easy to use. The Applications menu has a search option, which is very helpful considering the amount of software included. Unlike bloated distributions like Ubuntu that are slow when used in a virtual machine, this one is quite sleek and the main web browser, Pale Moon is very fast to load. This makes a Linux distro like this a better alternative to Lubuntu for lower specced machines. And it comes with much more software out of the box. Making it much more useful in the long run. And there is no Systemd. That is another big plus. No init system bloat. That has to be a good thing. Pulseaudio and Systemd are cancer on modern Linux. Using a simpler init system makes the boot time even faster.
There is so much software included as I mentioned. The Hydrogen drum sequencer, Mpv movie player, Cheese webcam program. There are quite a few networking applications as well. Even a macchanger utility for constantly rotating MAC addresses for privacy when using a network. As well as LibreOffice for productivity. And the Thunderbird E-Mail client. So, this is a very well-rounded Linux distribution. As far as networking goes, WIFI and Bluetooth are disabled by default, but there are menu entries to enable this if required. So it is not a pain to get it working. The Jack audio connection kit is also included to allow the use of the LMMS and Hydrogen music creation applications. So there is something for everyone. I had the KVM Virtual Machine configured with 4 GiB of RAM and it still runs very fast. Modern Linux distributions should learn from this one. They are getting more and more bloated and for no real reason.
The PsychOS login manager is slim instead of the bloated GDM. This really helps the fast boot times. To select a different desktop window manager, logout and press F1 at the login screen to select IceWm instead of Xfce4. The username is “psychos” and the password by default is “linux”. The IceWM desktop environment looks very good and is extremely fast to use. This is a Linux distribution you should really try out. Especially if you have a dusty old Pentium 4 computer in your loft. This should run fine on it.
Downloads and information: https://psychoslinux.gitlab.io/.