> For a monolithic kernel like Linux changing a driver like the one for video card means recompiling the entire thing.
Not necessarily, Linux has loadable kernel modules as well and most drivers are built that way and loaded on demand. The Nvidia proprietary drivers for instance are a loadable kernel module, though they are tied to a specific kernel version. BSD does basically the same thing.
There are somewhat more subtle differences: Not only are modules not tied to a particular kernel, they are also (to varying degrees) isolated against the rest of the kernel.
WDDM in particular can recover from a driver crash and restart hardware and driver (which you can trivially demonstrate on an AMD card by waiting for an hour or two…), while Linux (and Windows XP with its older driver model, and probably BSDs) will panic the entire kernel on problems like this.
Yeah, that's what I thought with NT, which is that drivers are much more isolated. If I understand it correctly drivers can still cause a kernel panic, but Microsoft requires that signed drivers pass a formal verification, which has greatly cut down on blue screens. I'm just an armchair observer though, so I'm not an expert.
I was always greatly impressed by Windows' recent ability to recover from something like a display driver crash with hardly a hiccup. That's pretty impressive voodoo.
Not necessarily, Linux has loadable kernel modules as well and most drivers are built that way and loaded on demand. The Nvidia proprietary drivers for instance are a loadable kernel module, though they are tied to a specific kernel version. BSD does basically the same thing.