I don't think it's fair to say its "not compatible with linux"... it's a data interchange... it may be that the "rio protocol" has not been documented publicly or had sample code released to the public, but if you can get to it at the hardware level, which I have to believe COULD be done, what order you toss the bits across the line is up to the two devices to negotiate.

Now, for the record, the Rio/800 works great on my Mac under OSX, so the "unixability" of the hardware-level code for the Rio/x00 series stuff must be pretty achievable. :)

D