Old thread but for anyone searching for information on this.
A more accurate statement is that the Geovision software does not run on linux. The hardware has no issue being recognized by linux kernels >2.6
I run a gv-800 on debian using zoneminder and it works beautifully. It is more versatile than the gv software because using the gv software, even the client needs to be running windows to view streams remotely due to active x controls and such. Zoneminder uses java and xhtml and runs on a normal webserver(apache) which is platform independent making it much more flexible. MySql is utilized as the back end. It also supports motion detection recording, PTZ controls and a host of other features. Definitely a viable solution on linux. Going to be experimenting with a gv-1240 next.