FYI It's actually 8 years old for the EeePC 901 and the last 32-bit Atoms came out in 2009.
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.