As somebody that was around at the time, this is not at all a stretch.

First, Linux was created FOR the 386. Linus Torvalds had one and wanted to unlock its power.

As you say, Windows 3.0 is certainly no stretch.

That leaves only Windows 95. The minimum spec at launch was a 386 with 4 MB of RAM. Realistically, you needed 8 MB to do anything.

Here is an article from 1993 saying that manufactures are beginning to drop the 386 from their product lines. That is, this is when people stopped being able to buy 386 machines brand new.

https://books.google.com/books/about/InfoWorld.html?id=2zsEA...

The 486 was the dominant chip in 1993 but there were still a lot of 386 machines being sold to that point when.

When Windows 95 shipped, people would certainly have been trying to run it on those machines.

When Windows 95 was released, people famously lined up to buy it like they were getting tickets to a rock concert. It was not just sold with new hardware. Back then, it was normal for people to pay money to buy a new operating system to run on hardware they already owned.

Of course Windows 95 certainly helped sell Pentiums. Pentium would have dominated new sales but a typical PC in service in 1995 would have been a 486 and there were still plenty of 386 machines in use.

I was just trying to give a bit of historical context, but apparrently need to be more precise next time! 386 is the beginning of 32 bit. But it's mainly the pentium and 486 that ran Windows 95.

Windows 95 was Microsoft's biggest commercial hit at that point. Selling 40m copies in its first year.

There's no doubt that it went in to upgrade plenty of 386s/486s until the owners upgraded their hardware.