After playing around with old spec hardware I would say before OP gives up try installing Alpine Linux.

Run Alpine Linux from RAM. That will consume about 125MB with the standard install. Set up persistence so you save changes. Install a lightweight window manager and use a lightweight browser like qutebrowser.

Even thought Alpine uses musl you can still get apps like Obsidian to run. I can't remember how though but this whole setup was usable on a PC that had a built in 56K modem.