Different OS structures and exception handling are responsible for the difference between amount of BSODS in Windows and that in Linux. If I understand correctly, because of the modular construction of Linux, it's not as sensitive to certain tampering within the kernel as Windows is. Windows also is a lot more "robust" and active compared to typical Linux kernels, which can also be a reason. There's nothing wrong with any of that, of course, it's just a different approach in OS design.
the Svchost spiking can be caused by anything, as svchost is - obviously - a host process for various services and whatnot. You can check which services run under a particular Svchost process by dbl-clicking the process in Process Explorer and then going to the Services tab. You can also use the Threads tab to see the spiking threads and their associated service (if available) and even dbl-click the thread to get its stack for more granular details on what's going on. As a tip, you can press Spacebar at any time to freeze/unfreeze all currently visible data (this does not affect new windows opened and will only show empty data on em).
Process Monitor is also a good application to diagnose strange activity. The log grows quick so it's best to take small snapshots just enough to witness the spike activity.
