content: FWIW, I'm sure that the classical "tiny" distros will continue to be available with IA32.  There are some out there that, though not particularly famous, have "makes old computers useful" as a very critical selling point.  Puppy Linux is one, IIRC.  I wouldn't be a bit surprised if someone forks Xubuntu for just this purpose, either, when Ubuntu decides to shut down 32-bit production. Simple fact of the matter is, though, that this is going to probably come to most Linux distros in the not-too-distant future, so dealing with it now is probably a good idea.