Hot Take Linux finally follows Windows and makes a CPU feature requirement mandatory

[Parkinsond]

The Linux kernel is finally making the Time Stamp Counter (TSC) a hard requirement for x86 processors more than a decade after Microsoft began using it as the preferred basis for high-resolution timing on suitable Windows systems.

For those wondering, the TSC is a special 64-bit register that acts as a processor counter and has been around since the Intel Pentium era. It provides a high-resolution (a highly fine-grained) way of measuring elapsed time, and can be accessed much more quickly (as it's just a CPU register) than platform timers such as HPET (High Precision Event Timer) or the ACPI PM (power management) timer.

https://www.neowin.net/news/linux-finally-follows-windows-and-makes-a-cpu-feature-requirement-mandatory/