But would not the install be configured to run on the computer where the install was done?
Yeah, that's Windows you're thinking of there.
Am I wrong it remembering that older versions of linux were not this friendly?
I'm still running an old RedHat 7.1 box and that is less friendly. However it can still be moved to other hardware, you just have to manually run the hardware detection tool after booting from a CD (of from the hard disk if you get lucky and it will boot that far).
_________________________
Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday