After the Revolution. When Martha Ballard began her diary in 1785, the Revolutionary War had been over for just a year. The states, still a confederation and almost entirely agrarian, had a total population of under 4 million.
The Yellowdog Updater, Modified (YUM) is a libre and open-source command-line package-management utility for computers running the GNU/Linux operating system using the RPM Package Manager. Though YUM has a command-line interface, several other tools provide graphical user interfaces to YUM functionality.
I'd try plugging it in and see if it works. Verizon indicates they are using a web based comm manager to drive it and that Linux support is coming soon. This probably means kernel modules for it are being developed, but it might just work as an NDIS device just as android hones do when tethered.