Breaking on every kernel upgrade is a configuration issue (and a result of Linux's driver model); the "quality" of the NVIDIA Linux driver being discussed is an

Breaking on every kernel upgrade is a configuration issue (and a result of Linux's driver model); the "quality" of the NVIDIA Linux driver being discussed is an issue of the actual performance, compliance, stability, and feature parity/freshness relative to others, once configured correctly. Reconfiguration/rebuild on every kernel update is definitely a hassle, and the NVIDIA scripts which try to automate the process still occasionally fail (IME, generally due to conflicts with the system package manager constantly deciding it knows best and trying to displace them with its own versions). But that's essentially an unavoidable consequence of combining out-of-tree drivers Linux's extreme no-stable-driver-ABI-ever design which requires all drivers to be rebuilt directly against the exact current kernel source: you always have to rebuild the bindings on kernel upgrade. The bindings can still be maintained by the distro vendor and its package manager, so they're centrally rebuilt (and fixed if needed), and updated in lock step with the kernel. This works well in Ubuntu, at least, these days. But absent that, the Linux model fundamentally requires local rebuild automation (or full manual rebuilds), which is prone to breakage, like any other "just download and rebuild from scratch against a new version" you've ever done, kernel/driver or otherwise.