Running Linux on a RiscPC – why is it so hard?

The author tried to put Debian on a 1994 Acorn RiscPC—an old-school ARM desktop—and hit a wall of crashes, reboot loops, and a bootloader scavenger hunt. Cue the crowd: instant drama. One camp says this is what happens when you mix “Potato” and “Woody” (yes, those are Debian version names) with vanished files and brittle installers—aka bit rot from a bygone web. Another camp rolls in with a pragmatic flex: skip the pain and just use NetBSD, which still supports RiscPC and can be built from a modern machine. Link-happy helpers waved receipts and nostalgia tears: someone mourned that it can’t run Acorn’s old Unix with its once-lovely desktop tools, while a purist yelled, “Just run RISC OS and contribute,” dropping riscosopen.org like a mic.

The spicy split? Fixers vs Feelers vs Purists. Fixers push NetBSD like a life raft. Feelers reminisce about school-computer vibes and boot logos (yes, the logo matters). Purists say: RISC OS forever. Meanwhile, a commenter working on a tiny netbook cheered that Debian’s ARM “armel” flavor still lives, hinting there’s hope for vintage chips. Meme-watch: “1994 called, it wants its bootloader back,” “A Woody Potato stew of reboots,” and the evergreen “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should” all made the rounds.