Linux Stability
January 17th, 2008
The instability of an operating system can be traced to poorly written programs aside from its intrinsic stability. The Linux kernel inherits the stability of UNIX whose modular architecture is acknowledged to be stable. Badly behaving applications can be terminated by mechanisms existing at multiple levels.
Sometimes, device drivers are reversed engineered to specifically work for Linux. Free drivers can be contributed and proprietary drivers provided by vendors. The system only needs to restart for kernel updates although a special utility can be used to load the new kernel. The stability of an operating system depends on numerous components that need to operate synchronously and is tested by its ability to thwart bad behavior consequences of third party installation.