(Credit: MSI/Pixabay)
The Blue Screen of Death has long been the harbinger of doom for users on Windows. Now Linux users might encounter the dreaded error messages too.
Systemd, a software suite widely used in Linux distributions, will adopt BSOD-style crash messages. The change arrives through version 255 as a component called “systemd-bsod,” according to Phoronix.
Like Windows, the Blue Screen of Death error will pop up through Systemd if an error reaches the “LOG_EMERG” level, rendering the OS unusable.
There’s no screenshot of what the error message looks like, or an explanation of why it's being adopted. But the developers say the error messages will be blue and display the boot failure along with a QR code to learn more about the nature of the problem.
The news is a bit surprising since the BSOD screen isn’t exactly a popular Windows feature. In addition, Linux already has its own version of an error message known as kernel panic. Still, the addition of the QR codes could make it easier for Linux users to address major errors on the OS.
Systemd is currently used in Linux distributions including Fedora, Debian, Arch, and Red Hat. So a large swath of the Linux community could end up adopting the new errors messages. However, Systemd could also drop the BSOD approach. The release notes currently say it's “experimental and its public interface is subject to change.”
Meanwhile, Microsoft itself has experimented with some changes to the BSOD error message, including changing it to black before reverting it back to blue.
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