Just a couple if days ago I converted my Chromebook (~4gb ram) to Linux with coreboot and installed antiX, then changed over to MX Linux, and I think MX is a great for what it is. I’m using the fluxbox window manager (provided as one of the options on MX) because it’s lightweight enough for the Chromebook, and my Chromebook runs far faster on Linux than it ever did with chromeOS.

If nothing else, I suggest looking into MX - I’m a happy customer. I think antiX was actually great too, and a bit more minimal - but the graphical interface of MX out of the box felt a bit more polished and was worth while for me.

I have a few such netbooks. I’m currently running debian oldstable (bookworm) on them. GuixSD also provides x32, but I still have to try that on slow computers. (Sidenote: maybe old Mesa versions work better for GUI). Ofc, it’s ok for trying BSDs (or maybe experimental stuff like Hurd and 9front).

About usage: you can put it into your garage, workshop, storage room, whereever you wouldn’t want your regular laptop (gets dirty, dusty).

For “desktop” purposes:

• emacs (editing text, taking notes, developing some software, reading email, rss client)
• reading books: epub and especially pdf were made for MUCH slower devices (you should avoid scanned books)
• IRC and matrix (in emacs, for example)
• discord client (yeah, I know, you shouldn’t do it)
• can play 360p H.264-encoded videos (you could use a smartphone for that, but I don’t)
• play mp3, act as a radio and play music or podcasts from the internet
• SSH and other remote access stuff
• testing whether software you write could run on slow hardware.
• it is a terrible experience to run a browser, but it works. I could browse the catalogue of a local library from it
• if something was doable in the 90s, the machine can handle it (mine came with diablo 1 installed)

As others already wrote, it’s also good for homeservers (web/gemini/gopher, git, mumble, irc bouncer).

If it is an actual nettop, and not a netbook, it probably has a mini-itx board with PCI on it, which makes it able to test/use old PCI cards. I used it for that purpose a little bit (there are better options, PCIe->PCI bridges). The atom D525 nettop board I have also has a mini pcie slot, which I converted into a full-sized one. Now it has a similarly slow Radeon HD 6450 in it, which helps it play videos. Should work up to 1080p, but now I realize I haven’t actually tried that.

MX worked really well when I was playing with a few compute sticks recently. I did not do any major comparisons here, just was surprised at how responsive MX was on there.

Gentoo