[sys42590]

Why not use one of the *BSD?

E.g. the newest NetBSD still supports i486 class processors: https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/i386/

[badsectoracula]

So does Linux[0], except some 486SX variants.

You are going to find way more software for Linux to make your computer practically useful and pretty much all information out there is for Linux, so unless you have a reason to explicitly prefer BSD, it is much better to install Linux than any of the BSDs.

In fact chances are Linux will support your old hardware better than most, if not all, BSDs.

[0] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...

[valeg]

Second that. OpenBSD is a good choice as well. No reason at all to burden GNU/Linux with all that legacy stuff.

[badsectoracula]

But "burdening" *BSDs is fine? :-P