> majority of the hotplug capability is hardware driven.

So what? The OS is still involved, since mouse events don't magically appear in the event pumps.

In any case, >>32 is wrong. You can reset a PS/2 mouse by sending 0xFF down the wire, which makes the entire assertion irrelevant.

> I'm comparing Windows 9x to Linux of the day.

I've already mentioned that you could do this in 98. I did it all the time. If someone rebooted, it only meant they didn't know how to change it... a lot like linux, right?

> SCO OpenServer required you to re-link the kernel and reboot to change the IP number.

Oh, really? And which version of OpenServer was this?