All those netbooks (atom processors; 1 GB or 2 GB ram; 32 GB hard drive) would be great with Linux (once the drivers get fixed) and really benefit from 32 bit because of the ram limitations.
Now? They'll end up in landfill.
A six-year-old 32-bit processor (e.g. an Atom in an EeePC 901 or HP Mini 311c) is more than capable of running a modern desktop system.
Also, for some of these machines they use a 32 bit UEFI, so even if you want to use a 64 bit OS you'll need some weird tinkering to get it installed.
I've successfully run Arch on a set of 10 EeePC 901s for a club. Linux plus Arduino programming = awesome kids.
I understand that some people would like to keep Arch 32 bit for their use cases. But as any open source project, the developer are mostly working on it on their spare time, you can not force them to work on anything. Having followed a little bit the discussion on the mailing list [1], I don't remember having seen a lot of objection among the developers. Also, they encourage the creation of a community around i686 [2]:
However, as there is still some interest in keeping i686 alive, we would like to encourage the community to make it happen with our guidance. The arch-ports mailing list and #archlinux-ports IRC channel on Freenode will be used for further coordination.
[1] https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-dev-public/2016-D... [2] https://www.archlinux.org/news/phasing-out-i686-support/
They come with a tiny bit of ram 2 gb, 4 gb if you're lucky.
The processor is 64 bit, but because of the small ram you'll suffer with a 64 bit OS. (Both Microsoft and Arch wiki agree here).
I suspect this means they'll end up in the landfill regardless.
Of course, there's the Arch Linux Archive, which lets you sync packages as they were on a particular date.