What is so fundamentally different about drivers in Linux and Windows?
Specifically, video card drivers have always frustrated my understanding
of what's going on under the hood. Say I have a nice video card from
ATI. I need to install some cool drivers from ATI in order to make the
card work at its best and in order to do any cool things like dual
monitors. I download these drivers from the company's website, install
them on my machine, and I'm off and running. Assuming all goes
according to plan.
That's all fine. Now, this is what confuses me. In Windows, I'm done
forever at this point. I've never had a problem, nor heard of a
problem, where I had to mysteriously reinstall the drivers for my video
card after an Automatic Update. Not so in Linux. Every kernel update
has me wondering if I'll have to reinstall the drivers for my video
card. It seems like sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. I just
reboot and pray that my video card is still working afterwards.
Not knowing a great deal about how drivers really work in Linux or
Windows, I can only really conclude that either Microsoft never updates
the Windows kernel (at least not in a way that screws with driver
interfaces), or there is something very different about how the two
operating systems handle drivers. Can anyone shed some light on the
subject for me?
Thanks,
bit
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