> Still required all the time if you develop drivers for physical hardware.

Thankfully, this is not quite true. Most Linux drivers are implemented as kernel modules, which can be loaded and unloaded at runtime. No rebooting necessary.

The guys who develop drivers for hardware that cannot be implemented as a kernel module (like some motherboard chipsets) probably have another machine for debugging or have some kind of dev boards to make their workflow more efficient.

Thanks for telling me how to do my job, I'm a kernel developer :-).

A bug in kernel code means you panic the machine, so you have to do a reboot.

Whether you load the modules at runtime, on demand, or the driver is statically compiled into the kernel has nothing to do with it. The decision of when to do linking does not influence development a bit.

Also, having multiple machines is required, not optional, because you use the dev machine to connect with a kernel debugger through a serial/firewire link to the test machine.

You're not required to boot from floppy disks these days :-) You can even test on another machine without installing the new kernel by using network boot.

Of course, I was just saying the reboot - test cycle on a physical machine is still required, details are insignificant :-).