A Look At The New Features Of The Linux 4.4 Kernel

[andre30correia]

I've never seen the point of considering drivers as "part of the Linux kernel". They're modules that get compiled in, yeah, but they're not really connected to the internal workings of the kernel, they're just interfaces with the hardware.

Thus, I don't really get the point of limiting driver releases with kernel releases. The same way I don't get the point of limiting graphics driver releases with the version of Mesa. Mesa is/was just an OpenGL library. The drivers use the library, not the other way around... so why does the library get to have all the power?

In this regard, Windows is way ahead of Linux. I shouldn't have to upgrade to a new kernel just to fix that pesky audio/networking/etc bug in my driver, wait for somebody to backport it to my kernel, or build the kernel myself. I should just be able to upgrade the driver.

ubuntu/fedora/suse and other upgrade and backport the drivers to old versions of kernel,... what the difference? every time i put a new usb drive in windows i need to wait to install it.. and most of vendors never upgrade the drivers, only with critical bugs or a new windows is out