Reply #10: Well, it's pretty hard to find a hardware interface between a (say) BRPE high-speed paper tape punch

[Tesha]

and a PCI bus, but given how much of Linux descends
from Unix, if you could find one, you could probably
make it work. And I'll bet the ASR33 paper tape punch
and reader work just fine right now.

But Linux does tend to fall down off in the unpopulated
corners. Embedded and Realtime support still needs *A
LOT* of work as does support for Flash Memory mass
storage. The GUI(s) is(are) still evolving as well and
are nowhere near PC or Mac levels of sophistication
yet. And while it's doubtless fun to have a file
system for every day of the week, one really good
one (e.g., ZFS) could replace the whole rag-bag of
existing Linux filesystems.

But if you're a computer tinkerer, Linux was absolutely
meant for you; you can easily spend the rest of your
life tinkering with it and never even have to come up
for air.

Tesha