The poster has stated that they want a distro no older than 4 years.

Did you try Slackware 15, or just Slackware 14.2?
You can do quite alot of customization in the new install, by dropping into the shell after install and mount root partition to /mnt and bind mount proc,sys,dev into /mnt and then chroot into /mnt. That way you can reduce the startup stuff, and even drop your own adapted Kernel into /boot, and many other things.

There are alot of things you can drop (almost everything) if you deselect packages manually during the installation (I have a cd sized Slackware 15 iso with a rich/functional software selection, with all the boot options included (300mb or so) - syslinux, efi, etc etc).

And, how about debian i386 netinstall image? (not very functional for use, but can be expanded)
https://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/

From Slackware-HOWTO for Slackware 14.2
From Slackware-HOWTO for Slackware 15.0
From the Slackware BDFL between the release of Slackware 14.2 (Thu Jun 30 20:26:57 UTC 2016) and Slackware 15.0 (Wed Feb 2 22:22:22 UTC 2022)
Sorry, but the software has moved on.

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I see.. But well, technically Slackware 14.2 is less than 4 years old if you consider the filetree is still being updated... End of life for Slackware 14.2 is January 2024. It doesn't receive new software, but security updates. So, if you make an iso of the filetree of Slackware 14.2 as oppose to the release image it can be considered less than 4 years old.

OK, bottom line might be LibreElec, which descrtibes itself as a JEOS = Just Enough OS.
It runs busybox, a kernel, & a video player, mainly from a ramdisk. Suck it and see.

Maybe compile your own kernel and create your own initramfs/boot. Mine weighs in at around a 7MB vmlinuz and 9M initramfs_data.cpio, both xz compressed, loads into around 50MB of ram. I additionally build in wpa for wifi net connecting, OpenSSH, framebuffer vnc, screen (as in similar to tmux), alsa and sndio etc. Pure framebuffer only, no X.

With that I wifi net connect and can ssh into my phone (that has termux installed) to tranfer pictures/videos to my laptop etc. and vnc into any server for a full gui desktop experience (I have a kvm/qemu full linux desktop system that runs on our 'server' (local desktop i5 system)).

Four tty's, the first of which I tend to use to wifi net connect and then framebuffer vnc into the server, that provides chrome/libreoffice...etc (that runs at the servers processing and hard wired net speed). Usually when you ctrl-alf-Fn to another tty you first ctrl-alt-spacebar 'freeze' the vnc session, otherwise updates bleed through (layer) onto the framebuffer, however I use that as a feature ... start a youtube playing (so vnc and sndio forward the video/audio to my laptop), ctrl-alt-f2 to another tty and with the youtube strategically placed it still shows (and can be heard) on the cli desktop. Nice to both see and hear whilst you're cli ssh'd into a another server for IRC/whatever.

Poor quality images attached, just quickly snapped screen shots and scaled the images down for posting.

First is the gui desktop I vnc into. Second is where I've ctrl-alt-F2 and started bmon (network activity monitor) and where the gui desktops video (youtube) still 'bleeds' through. Third is the same, but with the youtube repositioned and the cli is running htop, indicating around 55MB of ram used ... not bad for when you're using chrome with a youtube playing and sound being heard

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