Unfortunately, many USB devices require their own drivers. And inevitably they are written only for Windows, not for Linux. USB is plug-and-play as long as you plug it into an OS that has a driver for it. At least with RS232 it was cake to make anything work on any platform--and in the case of Linux you could run RS232-based devices through a Windows emulator.

I miss RS232 myself. You had it on microcontrollers that cost pennies all the way up to computers that cost thousands. It was truly universal, unlike USB which is only universal in name.

That said, if you live in a Windows world it's hard to argue that they are convenient.

Regards,
Craig Steiner