Once you get the modem working you can set up a PPP or other connections to the Internet, do rlogin, ftp, and use Netscape to surf. From this point on I don't need the other machine to download software. Misc Up to this point, all hardwares tested work more or less as expected. I haven't bothered to check IRQ conflict with other device as this does not seem to cause any problems. If I need to repeat the whole installation again it wouldn't take more than three hours, much less than the length of time to write this note.
Nothing seems missing, though.
In conclusion I feel very happy using Linux on this machine. My wife helped a lot figuring out many hardware details.