Considering the development process isn't really open, that sounds like a lot of speculation. While the claim of "false advertising" seems like the wrong choice of words (I doubt there's any malice related to this issue and it sets the wrong tone), it does address an incompatibility that may not have been apparent, and the root issue is with the "i686" moniker. As in the original post, i686 is associated with ending with PIII processors, which was true for a while, but this changed when Intel took a step back from Pentium 4 NetBurst "i786" and developed Pentium M processors, which are based on PIII. Pentium M is included in i686, which is why SSE2 ends up included, and seems misleading to people who never had exposure to it.

There is also the point 32-bit operating systems are primarily used on older machines (if bare metal is used). The issue at hand is most people with i686 trying to use 32-bit Slackware, are likely to have issues unless they use a specific subset of Intel 32-bit machines (Pentium 4 & M, and a small fraction of Atom processors). If SSE2 is going to be a hard requirement, perhaps using the i786 moniker would clear up any confusion.

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Sorry about that. I should have stated, "Inappropriate Advertising." Researching the thesaurus, using anything but the term false would have either inhibited further vagueness; and/or being possibly both further vague and laughable. The main problem is, we cannot control the audience for reading and applying their own perception. And we cannot further control the actions of those misreading statements and applying misguided actions. The reason I apologized, I do not feel like fighting with somebody's perception or their state of mind. Bottom line, there was no ill intent and I spent some time re-reading prior to posting to ensure I utilized proper grammar along with an appropriate shortened title. Some people, are more so, seemingly insinuating ill intention of people trying to run Linux on non-SSE2 platforms, and ridiculing their efforts.

Can easily be reverted to having to use millions of adjectives and adverbs, in order to avoid every possible paranoid reaction. On the flip, the press is very good with playing games with words.

I agree. Active operating system distributions should state accurate minimum system specifications.

Rather than specifying i786 moniker, I was thinking, should be Pentium 3 with SSE2.

Yes, running an older version of a binary distribution is possible, however upper level user applications will be out-dated, requiring downloading the latest version and self compiling the release.

Reference: Distro Watch (https://distrowatch.com/ ; https://distrowatch.com/search.php?architecture=i386 ) contains many or a large number of old i386 Linux distribution descriptions, of which Debian is listed as supporting i386.

BSD/FreeBSD seems a little user/consumer non-friendly, as such, from what I've researched, the operating system is mainly designed for network routers, or network systems. Spending much more time for configuration/etc, probably just best to install Gentoo Linux and compile every package from source.

Someone could create a Slackware Doc concerning it. https://docs.slackware.com/start

There is no PIII with SSE2. Or Athlon XP. If you have those old CPU, only modern browser that still works (without SSE2) is epiphany.

I'm pretty sure debian 32-bit doesnt require SSE2, other than firefox and chromium.