MS had USB support years before linux, back as an addon to Win95 OSR2. Of course, it sucked and you can't use it for anything.
You had to buy 98 and get all of its added overhead just to run USB.
Likewise, you had to go to 2000 if you wanted USB on an NT kernel.
Linux was slow in getting USB, but all you gotta do is download the kernel and you got USB on your old linux system.