If you really want to safely play with W11 on a daily machine for some reason just buy a $25 SSD. That’s a small price for not worrying about reverting back to W10 or losing data etc etc
I did a silly thing. Core2 Quad system so well into unsupported territory. This one has a full fat onboard PCI floppy controller (not usb) which works fine under W11. Also the 21 year old college homework files on the floppy are still intact!
For 32bit only linux I have had good experiences with Bunsen Labs linux. They still maintain a 32bit build which is nice. Last time I played with it I was able to get 1080p h.264 (tweaked) playback on a pentium-m.