Often times when something just works, we tend to take it for granted. I think software package management in Linux is one of those things. It just works. Time and time again I have to help people ...
I was running redhat 7.3 on an old p2 350 as a file server... got a new system so I put my old 1.2 tbird as the file server, put the redhat OS drive in the 1.2 tbird and booted linux fine, kudzu ...