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Blue Screen of Death for Mac OS X

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the creative-wastes-of-time dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Possibly nothing in the OS world has as much of a bad rap as the infamous BSOD (blue screen of death) in Microsoft Windows. On the other hand Apple hides the ugly kernel panics behind a nice looking GUI which only tells you its time to restart your dead system. Interestingly Mac OS X kernel has a secret API which lets you decide what your kernel panics are going to look like! In this Mac OS X Internals article Amit Singh explains how to use this API. Apparently you can upload custom panic images into the kernel and there's even a way to test these images by causing a fake panic. The article also shows the ultimate joke is to upload an actual BSOD image for authentic Windows looking panics right inside of OS X."

3 of 349 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Likewise by Brother+Dysk · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Dude, imagine an orange screen of death - your computer crashes: "OH SOD!" Kickarse!

    --
    - Frans.
  2. Re:Not like Microsoft invented it... by sgt_doom · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    Excuse me....excuse me....EXCUSE ME....it so happens Mac invented everything...get with the program.....(well, except for that paper tape bootstrap loader on the PDP-11....)

    21st Century Reading List:

    Blood Money, by T. Christian Miller, Hostile Takeover by David Sirota, The Bush Agenda by Antonia Juhasz, Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast, Jacked and also Other People's Money by Nomi Prins, Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins, No Place To Hide by Robert O'Harrow, What Every American Should Know About Who's Really Running the World by Melissa L. Rossi, American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips, Judas Economy by Wolman and Colamosca, and War is a Racket by
    General Smedley Butler.

  3. Mac Performance Issues by MogNuts · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I know this is offtopic, but I'm curious:

    I see alot of posts within the past few weeks saying that you don't need an amazing video card unless you play games. OSX heavily utilizes the 3D graphic cards in the actual interface, correct? I see all the new macs, for the most part, coming out with weak 3D cards. When a system is taxed, (or in general) doesn't the card affect OSX's performance? Or is OSX at a point where it's optimized enough that, for example, the integrated Intel chip in the mini will be just as fluid and responsive (graphics-wise only) as a mac pro with an ATI radeon x1900 (or a better example being an X1600 w/ 128MB RAM)? Recently I played with both side by side and the difference was not noticeable (however, I did not tax the system). But this puzzles me. Does a more powerful video card matter anymore with macs? It defies common sense (faster video cards in the past always gave better performance in day-to-day tasks in windows, for example).

    P.S. I do not own a Mac so I cannot test this myself.