> I'd expect you could run modern Debian on such a machine no problem...
Nope. Current builds of i386 Debian require a Pentium Pro or later -- I believe it's because they're compiled with the CMOV instruction, which wasn't present in the Pentium or earlier.
Ah, good point. Looks like Debian Jessie might have worked for it? In any case, distrowatch suggests a few others like Alpine and TinyCore that might have the proper support.
Nope. Current builds of i386 Debian require a Pentium Pro or later -- I believe it's because they're compiled with the CMOV instruction, which wasn't present in the Pentium or earlier.