> “you can’t install unless you upgrade your CPU”

To be fair, I recently had to switch distros for my little Atom-based server because of a similar deal:

https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:X86-64-Architecture-Levels#...

Granted, I only had to convert to Tumbleweed (not trivial, but easier than reinstalling), and the open source nature means there will always be lots of other alternatives, too.