> Those who would like more details about the growing dysfunctionality of Linux and why it is the way it is may want to watch this YouTube video.

Some context before I give my perspective: I've been using Linux since before the 2010s, I ran Arch Linux for about 7 years solid, and I've used probably about 100 or 200 distributions in total (I'm an ex-distrohopper). For a 2 or 3 year stretch I used Alpine Linux and compiled most things from source. I keep "old" hardware about (I have a trusty X200 in the corner as I'm typing this), but have contact with baby boomers and do technical support from them sometime.

From my perspective, Linux is the strongest it's ever been. The joke of "X is the year of Linux on the desktop" is evergreen, but actually seems to be approaching true. I can literally pick a random top-10 distribution, install it for someone, and the likelihood of them encountering major breaking bugs in wifi drivers, sound, graphics cards, etc. is vanishingly low and getting lower by the year -- which is shocking given how regular these things were even as late as 2018. In terms of compatibility and usability Linux is probably the strongest it's ever been. The decades long joke that was Pulseaudio has been replaced with a solid system. Most of the graphics driver weirdness that was the 2010s has been fixed through the efforts of the mesa team with help from Valve's Big Pockets.

> Linux developers' responses clearly show that Linux is no longer an operating system for computer hobbyists who want to keep their beloved vintage or near-vintage computers alive. Instead, it has become an operating system that developers see as a way of boosting their careers.

I think this is an incredibly specific perspective that is ignorant of... the majority of users. Sure, in the late 2000s Linux was seen (by Windows users mainly) as nothing more than a system that you'd slap on a shitty old computer to keep it working. But from the start Linux was never actually intended to be relegated to that position, and much of the actual developer and userbase was and has been driven by corporate interest in Linux-on-the-Server and, more recently, Valve's Linux-on-the-Handheld. Linux tends to be flexible to be a "what you make of it", but that has ALWAYS involved someone actually putting in the effort and time and energy (and often money) to make it into that. It's not really OP's fault if there are no good modern distributions to stick on something and make it work (Even though, uh, as we shall see, there are. Lol), but it's kind of weird to expect that expense from someone else when OP seems to be completely aware of how much goes into that in the first place.

> Given that few Linux developers are willing to provide old versions of their distributions on line any more

From my memory some distributions that aren't really a Thing anymore but were used for old computers were Knoppix and Puppy.

And, oh look. Knoppix versions from 2017 are still around: http://torrent.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/

A quick check and... Puppy is still around and going strong?! Also, it seems like Puppy versions from years ago are still around too (this was 1 click to grab the current iso and a short edit of the URL to go back up in the directory tree LOL) - https://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/

And... oh shit, wait- what's that!

https://distro.ibiblio.org/

seems to have a metric (expletive)-tonne of distributions going back to uhh, looking at the i486 Zenwalk directory... 2006? is 20 years not good enough??

> Now that many of my old PC's are aging out of Linux

[CITATION NEEDED]

> probably because it uses light-weight desktop environments like IceWm that are rather old and were never standardized to the extent of the more modern environments

Just use Slackware or Puppy and install LXDE...? What exactly is the problem here :/