Why is running Linux on a RiscPC so hard?

What if you have a Risc PC, but aside from RISC OS, you also want to run Linux? Well, then you have to jump through a lot of hoops, especially in 2025.

Well, this was a mess. I don’t know why Potato is so crashy when I install it. I don’t know why the busybox binary in the Woody initrd is so broken. But I’ve got it installed, and now I can do circa-2004 UNIX things with a machine from 1994.
↫ Jonathan Pallant

The journey is definitely the most rewarding experience here for us readers, but I’m fairly sure Pallant is just happy to have a working Linux installation on his Risc PC and wants to mostly forget about that journey. Still, reading about the Risc PC is very welcome, since it’s one of those platforms you just don’t hear about very often between everyone talking about classic Macs and Commodore 64s all the time.