BSODs of the week: From GRUB to nagware It's not always Microsoft's fault. Some of the dozens – literally – of submissions El Reg has received documenting Windows in a state of public undress show the world's most beloved operating system weeping because something else failed. Such as if the bootloader is corrupted or trying to find a hard drive that's not there. …
Whilst I understand that it would be interesting to see a real kernel panic as a result of a code fault, this isn't one.
It looks as if the ReiserFS filesystem on device md(9,1) - if I read that correctly, is corrupt, and cannot be mounted, and then cannot umount the RAM filesystem that was loaded during the bootstrap. This looks like it is the root filesystem, and as a result when the kernel that Grub has already loaded tries to start init, it can't.
From this point there's not a lot the system can do, and it takes the very sensible decision to panic with an appropriate message.
There's no fault in Linux, so it's not what I would call a real panic.
>Do you believe any BSOD in Windows is due to a Windows code error?
What do you consider a total system lockup (with corresponding data loss and potential FS corruption) to be, over there at MS PR, then RICHTO Vogon? A special USB insertion notification "feature"?
Do PLEASE go away.
<sarcasm>Gosh, systemd is more magical than I knew! It can be loaded from a missing filesystem, where init can't and then mystically re-populate a newly formatted root filesystem to make the system work! I must quickly switch all my systems to systemd immediately</sarcasm>
I'm a SysV (and earlier Bell Labs UNIX) init diehard. I've lived with it for 30+ years. I can (reluctantly) cope with Upstart, because it still does the init directory thing, but I'm really thinking of trying to find a Linux that does not include systemd because It's too complicated and non-deterministic.
Failing this, one of the *BSDs beckon.
When is the last time you saw a BSOD. Better yet when have you seen a BSOD that was not hardware related ?
Most - and that's from spending some years in repair/servicing.
Many caused by driver errors (not hardware, the hw works fine and in all other OS's, but windows update or fucked with the driver or some condition arose which was unexpected and windows had no graceful way to recover). Seen many of the ones from some bit of data in the registry getting out of sync causing a BSOD on boot relating to specific files and the so-called "security" info that told windows whether it had been tampered with or not (been out of that industry a little while now, starting to blissfully forget some of this stuff!)
Many caused by interesting errors with badly written software, eg MS Office or IE. Or various games (not looking in EA's direction at all, honest!)
Unless you count corrupted data on a disk as "hardware fault" (when the disk itself is perfectly fine and something with the OS caused the error) including incorrect information in the registry causing something to fail, then the vast majority of BSOD's I saw were software related. I can't say how much but it would've been less than 1% were directly hardware, and a reload of driver software or repair of the faulty registry entries or (when it worked) using a restore point to go back to before the update where the problem happened would fix it. Actually, aside from a few machines with BSOD's just after a hardware change or upgrade (eg new mobo) I can't think of any cases where I saw hardware realted BSODs. A few stopped loading with failing disks but most of those were brought in because of the bios holding boot with a warning about disk failure.
So IME most BSODs are by coding or data errors. Not necessarily bad code, just something unexpected and therefore untested.
The last real software BSOD I saw was caused by the driver for a graphics adapter in Windows XP, although I have seen the equivalent on Windows 7 caused by not having the correct drivers installed after swapping the motherboard on a system.
I admit that in neither case was it the primary OSs fault, but device drivers. But the driver model on Windows NT 4 onward, where the graphics driver can bring down the whole OS, compared to Linux, where most of the graphics code runs in user mode so the screen crashes, but the rest of the OS functions so you can either re-start the graphics subsystem, or gracefully bring down the OS is IMHO preferable.
Ah, wait a minute. An update caused my middle son's Windows 7 system to fail to boot last weekend. Was fixed, I understand (he fixed it himself), by re-loading the Nvidea driver for his 980.
BTW. I'm old enough that I have worked at the source level on UNIX kernels kernel, and seen (and caused!) real kernel panics caused by code faults.
I've also seen panics (well, 888-102 and 103) errors on AIX (you see this sort of thing in a support centrre)
There used to be a standard X11 screensaver that showed the crash screen of several types of system, including SunOS/Solaris, Macintosh OS (OS9 or earlier) and Windows, amongst several others. Used to really surprise people when they saw it unexpectedly. Was also a challenge trying to identify them all as they cycled round.
IIRC, the Windows mock crash screen had NCC 1701 encoded as one of the fault codes!
"Do companies not lock down their display systems?"
It's an advertising company. All adverts are good. Even the ones for Win10. Really. Honestly. So why would they lock their systems down. Blocking adverts is stealing. I heard that somewhere. And doesn't everyone want to see registry cleaner advertising itself?
Stupid menu screens.
One picks out a sandwich based on the description, and is just about glance back at the item's precise name, when suddenly the entire menu turns into a video advertisement.
At this exact instant, "May I take your order?"
"Yeah, I'd like the sandwich listed 3rd from the bottom, with cold cuts, mayo and lettuce."
"Which one? What's it called?"
"I don't know. The eff'n menu disappeared just before I memorized the name. Do you mind waiting? I'm sure that the advertisement will be done soon."
to varying degrees of badly. Throws a hissy fit every now and then and MIGHT not show an ad to some eyeballs is a somewhat acceptable form of bad. Kills a person is a somewhat less acceptable form of bad. Kills us all is ofcourse also somewhat bad -->
Are you failing to distinguish between Adobes Acrobat program and their PDF reading program? not surprising due to their stupid names.
Acrobat is for *making* pdfs and costs lots of money . "Adobe Reader" is the bloatware that *displays* a pdf , when its not screaming and bitching like a baby about god knows what . That part is free.
Both parts can now be substituted for non adobe versions (word 2010 can save as pdf) and if I had my way would be.
> Here at work, we use many Adobe products, including Acrobat, which is necessary because Windows doesn't have the ability to display PDF files.
Displaying PDFs is just a JavaScript file away on any browser.
Further, modern browsers tend to have built-in support for PDF rendering.
Is anyone else as bemused as I am at the number of honking huge expensive LCD monitors restaurants toss around these days?
I went to a burger joint recently that was plastered with half a dozen LCDs in the 28"-30" size. Just to display the menu.
I also remember the first very early morning in a Burger King before I realized they were LCDs. "Hang on, it's *scrolling*" - I was not yet awake enough for such a thing.
Those LCD screens are cheap. They are the lamest TFT panels in existence, some can't even get 1080p.
How do I know? A burguer joint around here just got a BSOD on one of them, and while it rebooted, the Samsung panel showed its resolution. It was 1280 x 720 or something, pumped through the VGA port.
Old gear, cheap.
> Is anyone else as bemused as I am at the number of honking huge expensive LCD monitors restaurants toss around these days?
I am taking a complete guess here, but maybe they change the menu frequently, or they do "dynamic" pricing?
E-ink devices would probably be a better choice in any event.
I've been getting BSODs on the Windows XP machine at work for the last few workdays. The first couple of times I was actually quite excited as I hadn't seen one on a machine I was using for years ,despite having to use Windows daily at work, so it was a blast from the past. I'm getting a bit bored of the BSODs now though.
Guess I'll have to fire up the BSOD screen server at home and remember I've done it so I don't panic when I see the kernel panic screen included in it like I did last time I used it.
Dual booting a machine will cause GRUB to shit over itself only if you have a Windows partition that was loaded recently... and that is the most common cause.
Windows fault. Always.
Boy, it's been 15 years since I have last done that dual-booting endeavour. I wonder how it is today... do you create a dual-boot between 2 Windows partitions using one of them, then you replace one with Linux? I guess the only way a Windows won't crap a dual boot, is that if it manages itself how it's done...
" I installed windows 10 then ubuntu."
Yep, worked for me too without any problems - up/downgraded to Win10, resized the Windows partition then installed Mint on the free space - Grub was installed and dual boot happened without any extra trouble on my part.
I've never had any problem with Win10 and Mint dual boot.
And one of the gantry machines was closed and running Microsoft chkdsk. That familiar black screen where disks are checked for 'consistency' and bad sectors.
It's a small screen where they display the biometric reading of your thumbprint. It was to my immediate left.
I would have taken a picture but there were signs banning the usage of cameras inside the building, and there were mean-looking customs officers about 5 metres ahead of me... so that's that.
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