for older hardware i always stick to antix.

Why use grub at all? If your laptop is compatible why not use rEFInd or something?

I also had a netbook with an Atom Z3735F and 2GB RAM, albeit an Ideapad 100s. The 32 bit versions of Debian Stable 11 and 12 worked out of the box for me.

If you are at the terminal, try running apt install grub-efi-ia32-bin before installing grub.

The only distro I got to run on my 32bit UEFI netbook was MX Linux, cause it supports 32bit, UEFI, and also ships with the necessary non-free firmware and drivers.
And I've tried a lot of others.

Thanks for replying, everyone! This project is temporarily on hold; downloading and sha256sum-ming some different isos led me to discover that my main system has a RAM issue. 🤦

I just learned to not trust motherboards' automatic RAM voltage setting; only one of four sticks seems to be sensitive to the apparent undervoltage that it was running on.

Edit: I hope that whoever designed the style of RAM slot that has a latch on only one side stubs their toe every day for the rest of their life.

Came here to recommend Antix or DSL 32 bit. Others have done that already.

Another option that Lemmy introduced me to just recently is Q4OS and the 32 bit Trinity Desktop version.

These are all Debian based ( DSL is basically Antix+ now ).

Did you look at 32 bit versions of :

• https://puppylinux-woof-ce.github.io/
• https://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
• https://antixlinux.com/download/
• https://mxlinux.org/download-links/

X86 uefi and amd64 CPU is a really hard combo to find support for. Your best bet is to use an x86 distro, it will also probably be lighter. The other option is to modify the iso, but I haven't ever done that.

which looks very cool but is way too heavy!

Replace KDE with LXQT/LXDE or a lightweight wm

To be brutally honest about this, your best bet is to recycle the unit.

The problems of trying to get a distro to install properly, have all the hardware working right and have a usable experience are not worth the minimal upsides.

I have an ASUS X205TA which is a similar unit and after trying for countless hours to get a usable device out of it was not going to be worth the headaches plus if I was getting paid for the time I spent on it I could have brought an off lease laptop with better specs.