Friend of mine who is still chugging along with his trusty Pentium 4 has been running an out of date Linux Mint 9 LTS since 9 LTS was available. He ASKED me if there was a good performing modern 32-bit version that he should upgrade to. I told him that Linux Mint 18 XFCE might be the best option but that I would check here to see if there is a better alternative.

His hardware specs:

Dell Tower
Pentium 4 - 2.4 Ghz socket 478 single-core
Intel 845GL Graphics 64MB ( shared memory with RAM ) ( 1024x768 res )
1GB DDR 266Mhz RAM ( 2 x 512MB )
80GB IDE HDD
DVD-RW Drive

His computer use:

He surfs the web with Firefox, e-mail, buying stuff online which some sites complain that his browser is out of date now, plays some very lightweight flash games, listens to music with it, and uses Open Office.

His concerns with continuing to use Linux Mint 9 LTS is that its out of date and he wants to be secure with security UPDATES. He wants it to be secure and also the best performance he can get from his old computer. I tried to talk him into buying a refurb computer for like $80 that is a Core 2 Duo and Windows 7 and so much better than the Pentium 4, but he really likes his old computer and doesnt want to replace it. I told him that sticking it out with that Pentium 4, he is sort of driving a Model T ford on the internet Autobahn with people passing him like he is standing still. Wouldn't you want a faster car? He jokingly said its not how FAST you get to the destination its the trip. I joked and said well I guess you like waiting for pages to load then. He has a DSL internet connection for internet which is quite fast with a modern computer but a page that loads fast on my laptop takes like 3 to 10 seconds on his Pentium 4 depending on the complexity of the website to view.

So is Linux Mint 18 XFCE 32-bit the OS to refer him to or something else? They can always try it using the Live version to see and make sure everything works properly?

If not Version 18 then he could always try 17.2 or 17.3.Any 32-bit distro should be fine. It's hard to know all the distinct fiobles of compatibility, so they'd want to boot up and poke about with a Live CD/DVD anyway. I don't even see a major problem sticking with Mint 9. The only caveat for doing so is that he'll want to manually upgrade programs like Firefox.

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He has a DSL internet connection for internet which is quite fast with a modern computer but a page that loads fast on my laptop takes like 3 to 10 seconds on his Pentium 4 depending on the complexity of the website to view.