Setting up the GDT is exactly the point where I got annoyed enough to see what risc-v was all about.

Yep, agreed. Don't get me wrong, the Intel/AMD docs are amazing. But even getting the hardware to a usable state (where I define usable as "something that can enumerate PCI devices on the system, even without PCIe") is an absolute pain that really just shouldn't exist. I know that RISC-V ahs it's own tough spots but... IMO it's a lot faster to get up and running with because it doesn't have 10000 execution modes with tons of different requirements you need to do for each mode, and on and on and on and on. (Yes, I'm exaggerating a bit.)