Linux 7.2 has landed, dragging x86 timing clean out of the nineties by making the Time Stamp Counter mandatory.
I wrote up a quick article on why ditching those ancient legacy fallbacks is good housekeeping, plus a few other bits like cache-aware scheduling and memory tweaks worth noting.
Is anyone still using legacy hardware? If so, what do you use it for?
I mean, most of the success of Linux comes from the freedom to solve local issues the way you want.
There have come lots of issues solved with a departure from the project from a need that drove the change. Want Debian without systemd? Devuan.
So yes, literally, if it’s important to you, you can fork it. Whether that takes a big lift or not doesn’t mean you’re any less free to do so.