TOM WALKER wrote in a message to ROY J. TELLASON:

RJT> TW> I do have Personnal experince that you cannot just assemble a junk
RJT> TW> box of components and have it function under LINUX though.

RJT>Gee,  that's funny,  because I have several machines doing just
RJT>that here.

TW> BUT you are not me. The point is you cannot just pull any
TW> component out of yuor Junk box and have it Work UNLESS they are
TW> all from Disassembled LINUX machines. There are still a number of
TW> Hardware glittches with LINUX.

Not really.  The hardware is either standard stuff or it isn't.  If it
isn't,  then either the manufacturer makes enough data available to write a
proper device driver or they don't.  If they don't,  then perhaps some
enterprising young hacker reverse-engineers it to the point where one gets
written anyway or the manufacturer releases something in binary-only form, 
rather than the customary source,  and you either accept that if you have
that hardware or you don't.

Then there are such abominations as win-modems and similar,  where they are
making an awful lot of assumptions about the machine,  the operating
system,  and the uses to which it's being put,  mainly that it's okay to
soak up big honkin' bunches of CPU time to run the darn thing,  but that's
a whole 'nother issue.

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