Linux users are about to get a dubious upgrade, with a blue screen of death in the works.

The blue screen of death was made infamous by Microsoft Windows. The screen appeared when the OS experienced a major error, but the messages and information included were notoriously unhelpful.

According to Phoronix , an update to systemd is poised to bring a similar message to Linux:

A new component “systemd-bsod” has been added to show logged error messages full-screen if they have a “LOG_EMERG” log level. This is intended as a tool for displaying emergency log messages full-screen on boot failures. Yes, BSOD in this case short for “Blue Screen of Death”. This was worked on as part of Outreachy 2023. The systemd-bsod will also display a QR code for getting more information on the error causing the boot failure.

There’s still a lot unknown about exactly how the feature will work, but hopefully it is much more useful than the Windows version… If it is actually implemented.