BSOD Makes Appearance at Olympic Opening Ceremonies 521
Whiteox writes "A BSOD was projected onto the roof of the National Stadium during the grand finale to the four-hour spectacular at the Olympics. Lenovo chairman Yang Yuanqing chose to go with XP instead of Vista because of the complexity of the IT functions at the Games. His comment on Vista? 'If it's not stable, it could have some problems,' he said. Evidently Bill Gates attended the opening ceremony, so he must have witnessed it."
well (Score:5, Funny)
They paid 40 billion for that ceremony. I can't see this improving their opinion of Microsoft much.
Re:well (Score:5, Funny)
But was it a pirated copy of Windows?
Re:well (Score:5, Funny)
Re:well (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps it was shanghaid.
Re:well (Score:5, Funny)
It's the Chinese Olympics. What do you think?
Actually, the reality is just as funny:
When you can't or don't need to "embrace, extend, and extinguish", sponsor!
My own opinion is that not anticipating a blue screen is like attending a Budweiser-sponsored sporting event and expecting to get real beer.
obvious justification: brand identity (Score:5, Funny)
...after all, if it had just done its job flawlessly there'd be no way for the crowd to know it was a microsoft product.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It was one of the two legit copies in the country?
Re:well (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
IMHO , It also perfectly explains why IBM decided to get rid of tiny computers and CPUs running tiny computers (except consoles). I think they got sick of them, really.
These guys manufacture mainframes which theoretically run forever. Imagine you see that screen in that company culture while a bank calls for a CPU upgrade of a mainframe which runs for 10 years non stop which will be still done without turning it off :)
Re:well (Score:5, Insightful)
In fairness to Microsoft, blue screens are normally due to bad hardware drivers. Whatever that thing actually was, it certainly wasn't a normal monitor and I'll bet the drivers are rather specific. And the less people use them, the fewer bugs are found.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:well (Score:5, Funny)
That's no excuse. No installation of Linux has ever crashed in the history of the universe. Microsoft should be held to no less a standard.
Re:well (Score:5, Funny)
A Linux installation crashes if and only if it doesn't respect it's user.
Re:well (Score:5, Funny)
next thing you'll be telling me BSD never gets hacked unless it's playing a prank on it's admin.
Re:well (Score:5, Funny)
next thing you'll be telling me BSD never gets hacked unless it's playing a prank on it's admin.
BSD never gets hacked unless it's playing a prank on it's admin.
Re:well (Score:5, Funny)
Macs only crash when you use the grammatically incorrect version of i
Re:well (Score:5, Funny)
exactly I hate this crap from Microsoft. It should be able to do like Linux and when there's a hardware problem it just reroutes power through the main deflector to fix it.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Ubutnu hangs whenever I try to force the mounting of a "dirty" ntfs volume (ie window didn't shut down correctly) with ntfs-3g through truecrypt.
That's technically a Microsoft thing. While Ubuntu should probably handle the error better and anticipate that sort of thing, NTFS is designed not to mount if chkdsk has not been run after a bad restart from the Windows side, and no substitute for chkdsk has been developed (that I know of). This could easily be avoided by removing all of the important data from your Windows partition and and deleting that partition :).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
FYI: the scheduler is part of the OS kernel which decides which process/thread to run next.
Sorry...the first post wasn't specific enough and I read it as a scheduler for processes i.e. cron.
A better analogy: suppose Microsoft implemented ext2 in Windows, but not fsck. Is it Linux's fault that you can't use volumes from a hard drive that Linux did not mount properly?
The point I'm trying to get across is that, for example, there is a big difference between Linux wanting to use NTFS and Windows wanting to use ext2. The NTFS spec is a trade secret, and all work that has been done with ntfs-3g has been essentially hacking around a black box. The reason why there is not a chkdsk implementation in Linux is because that box is so secretive in the way it handles internal corrupti
Re:well (Score:5, Funny)
What are you, some kind of shill?
What's their motivation.... (Score:3, Insightful)
What's the motivation to write better hardware drivers if any time the system blue screens, people will just blame the OS anyway?
Re:What's their motivation.... (Score:5, Funny)
Good point, Windows should identify the offending driver, read it's manufacturer info, then shame the creator on the BSoD.
"A fatal exception has occurred because CheapHardware's Crappy802.11g device driver was written by mildly retarded gibbons."
Re:What's their motivation.... (Score:5, Informative)
This has actually been proposed a number of times (without the personal attacks), but rejected for two reasons:
The latter problem is more important. Problem is, kernel mode code can do *anything*, including write to other modules' memory space. So if a driver "baddisplay.sys" accidentally wrote to an uninitialized pointer that just happened to point to the memory space of "goodprinter.sys", but didn't fail as a result (remember, no real memory protection in kernel mode), and "goodprinter.sys" later reads the screwed up memory and fails, it will look like a problem in "goodprinter.sys", even though "goodprinter.sys" behaved correctly (dying when faced with an irrecoverable error).
This is why the "Problem Reports and Solutions" only provides information after conferring with MS. When it gives you an answer, it's because someone at MS took a look at your crash dump (or someone else's dump which exhibited the same problem), figured out the actual cause of the crash, and linked the crash and solution together. If it blamed the module automatically, you'd spend time harassing a perfectly innocent printer manufacturer, and MS would need to hire even more lawyers.
(Disclaimer: Former MS employee, this is only what I was told)
Err , if the projector driver had failed... (Score:3, Informative)
... the BSOD wouldn't still be being projected onto the roof!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:well (Score:5, Funny)
And you feel that this is one of those instances?
Re:well (Score:4, Informative)
IIRC, the default was actually changed to automatically reboot back with Windows 2000. (And, I want to say that NT4 Server also automatically rebooted.)
Re:In fairness to software engineering (Score:5, Insightful)
Jeez. MS apologists always trot out that one. Making bad engineering acceptable will probably be Bill Gates [amazon.com]' largest "contribution" to society.
In fairness to software engineering, if the "bad" hardware driver can crash the system, then the system is not ready for production and has more than a few show-stopping (no pun intended) bugs. Take a look at basic kernel or micro-kernel design principles and stop spreading the view that catastrophically bad design is acceptable.
Linux puts most drivers in the kernel and a bad driver there can cause a panic, bringing the system down.
Most of the BSDs, AFAIK, have some drivers in the kernel and others in userland processes.
I'm not sure how it's architected in Mac OS X, but I've certainly seen kernel panics on my Mac Mini.
There may be an embedded OS which is less susceptible to being killed by a poor driver, but for something like this you probably wouldn't bother with an embedded OS because there's so much more in the way of off-the-shelf software available to do the job for Windows and Linux.
Re:In fairness to software engineering (Score:5, Interesting)
As somebody who has written a bad device driver for Mac OSX I can confirm that a bad driver can and frequently has crashed my OS X kernel.
OS X is based on a microkernel, but in practice it is as monolithic as Linux or BSD.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:In fairness to software engineering (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong. WRONG.
Yes, Linux (as a specific example) uses drivers directly in kernel mode. HOWEVER, those drivers are PART of the OS, distributed and supported WITH the OS, and are Open Source, along with the rest of the kernel. Redhat supports the whole thing.
If drivers are to be supplied "in kernel" this is REQUIRED for reliability. Take Solaris as an example. Source is supplied, along with a DDI layer.
If drivers are supported ONLY via a "DDK" (driver development kit), there must be an isolation between that part of the kernel that CANNOT be understood by the driver developer, and the driver. This was the primary issue with "unreliable" display drivers in the Windows 3.x days -- functionality MUST be implemented, but the reference was not documented, or incorrect.
Indeed, a lot of vendors took extreme steps to deal with this issue -- permanent staff at Microsoft, or (illegally) reverse engineering the support code (GDI).
Unfortunately, the promoted Windows driver development path is "Believe in the DDK, and go" without reference source. Of course, this IS prone to failure -- finally recognized in Vista. (but obvious to vendors since Windows 3.x).
The solution here? Go to a micro-kernel OS. Or, plant parts of device drivers into standard protected mode (user space). Both of which cause performance issues. Or keep part of your software team in Redmond.
Also, given that the interface and driving layer (what I would call a "driver") is under Microsoft's control, the test suites must come from Microsoft as well. If a "crash path" is then NOT exercised, that is ALSO Microsoft's problem. There should be no way for a higher level application to utilize anything OTHER than a tested path to the driver. If it can, the testing is useless, and "Microsoft Certification" is useless.
An analogy at the application layer - SUN has the "application guarantee". That consisted of a series of tools that collected API usage (and could be run by the customer). If an application passed, and then a later upgrade of Solaris BREAKS the application, it is SUN's problem. (SUN fixes the OS or Application).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Have you looked at the efforts of the Minix 3 operating system? It's a true microkernel where most drivers run outside of ring0 with limited access to hardware and/or the kernel.
Not just that, but it has stuff in place to severely limit the impact of a rogue driver and can restart dead or dying drivers, not to mention it embraces message passing with interrupts being passed to the driver as low-latency messages.
Other operating systems like QNX implement things in a similar way, although QNX also has gurante
Re:In fairness to software engineering (Score:4, Insightful)
I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of kernel panics I've seen on either my Linux box or my Mac Mini. My Windows machines however.....
I've actually had my Macbook Pro freeze more times in the last year than my Windows machine. In fact, it even hung once when I closed the lid and tried to fry itself with the backlight. That's funny about this is I've had the Macbook for about 4 months, whereas I've had the Windows machine all year.
I promise you this is a true story. Your mileage may vary, even if you're a Mac user.
Re:In fairness to software engineering (Score:4, Funny)
I've actually had my Macbook Pro freeze more times in the last year than my Windows machine. In fact, it even hung once when I closed the lid and tried to fry itself with the backlight.
You know you've got an unpleasant personality when computers try to kill themselves rather than work with you.
Re:In fairness to software engineering (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Even still, this is an interesting situation. Assuming that virtually all BSODs and spontaneous resets on Windows are caused by faulty hardware drivers, apparently, these drivers, produced by professionals, even those certified by Microsoft, even those _shipped_ by Microsoft, seem to cause crashes a whole lot more often than those produced by a horde of hobbyists on the open-source side of the OS world.
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Let's just go ahead and admit that you crashed it, because when X goes down, 99% of programs will just halt immediately losing all of your saved work. I've never had X go down and then, like when Windows Vista's window manager goes down, have everything working just fine. Seriously, I encountered what must be a rare bug in Bioshock because I alt-tabbed into a maximized window, moved the mouse, and the display driver crashed. Windows brought it back online and informed me of that, and everything (including B
Re:In fairness to software engineering (Score:4, Informative)
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But also they answer for the drivers, so a "bad driver" issue is actually a kernel issue.
I don't understand why "bad drivers" are not supposed to be the responsibility of MS. It's possible to design a system resilient to that kind of failure.
Well, this is very true.
However, you've got to look at the context. Firstly, Microsoft are more concerned about the system being stable on the sort of hardware bought by businesses - half-decent quality PCs and servers - and these tend to use relatively conservative hardware which has decent drivers.
Secondly, a bit of history - while the idea of true microkernels with practically every driver being a true userland process is not new, the performance penalty they introduce (which is less of an issue on mode
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Back when Windows NT was being developed, I heard that device drivers had to communicate with hardware through the hardware abstraction layer (HAL), and this made Windows NT very stable. Then I heard that they decided to allow hardware drivers to connect directly to hardware because sometimes going through HAL had a performance hit. I can't find much information on the history, but these lecture notes [kent.edu] seem to confirm that drivers can now bypass HAL. Is this why bad drivers can still crash Windows?
Microsoft
Re:In fairness to software engineering (Score:4, Interesting)
100% true. NT 3.5 and 3.51 had the video outside the kernel. NT 4.0 moved it to kernel level. This was a big to do at the time, with everyone claiming that NT 4 was going to become unstable that way. Ironically, XP probably wouldn't have been used for projecting graphic images on a ceiling if that change had not been made 2 generations back. Damned if you do, damned if you don't...
Re:In fairness to software engineering (Score:5, Informative)
and now, with Vista, display drivers are back to being in user-mode [microsoft.com]:
At a technical level, WDDM display drivers have two components, a kernel mode driver (KMD) that is very streamlined, and a user-mode driver that does most of the intense computations. With this model, most of the code is moved out of kernel mode. That is, the kernel mode piece is now solely responsible for lower-level functionality and the user mode piece takes on heavier functionality such as facilitating the translation from higher-level API constructs to direct GPU commands while maintaining application compatibility. This greatly reduces the chance of a fatal blue screen and most graphics driver-related problems result in at worst one application being affected.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
...assuming the error is not completely unrecoverable:
Then Linux can restart X and chug happily along.
It still won't look pretty if you are using it as
a projector in front of a billion people but you also
won't have a door stop.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In Vista, the only driver crashes I've seen cause only a brief screen flicker.
Of course, also in Vista, no one can hear you scream.
Re:In fairness to software engineering (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, do you know of an operating system where talking to hardware cannot cause a panic? Even microkernels such as Mach are prone to these problems. ANY time you touch hardware there can be a problem if it's coded wrong. Even microkernels have to allow DMA for certain hardware, and bad DMA can bring down a whole system without even trying. There's a basic design flaw in how normal computers operate that requires this sort of behavior from kernels, which leads to bad drivers affecting them. If you can name one system ready for general purpose for which this isn't true I would love to hear about it.
Re:In fairness to software engineering (Score:5, Funny)
There's a basic design flaw in how normal computers operate that requires this sort of behavior from kernels, which leads to bad drivers affecting them. If you can name one system ready for general purpose for which this isn't true I would love to hear about it.
GNU Hurd
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sorry, do you know of an operating system where talking to hardware cannot cause a panic?
[...]
If you can name one system ready for general purpose for which this isn't true I would love to hear about it.
I haven't worked with QNX lately, but it has historically been a very tolerant OS in my experience. You are correct that at some point the OS MUST access hardware directly, and that faulty hardware will cause a software crash...but there are degrees of vulnerability here.
Microkernel OSes, especially those like QNX that are used in embedded and/or real-time applications, are extremely fault tolerant. Because hardware subsystems are each accessed by separate, self-contained low-level processes, a hardw
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I know I'll be modded down to -infinity on this, but seriously - my Mac G5 has kernel panicked more than my Windows XP box (keep in mind my G5 has done this maybe twice last year?)
Re:In fairness to software engineering (Score:4, Insightful)
Jeez. MS apologists always trot out that one.
No, people who are reasonable and levelheaded always trot out that one.
Re:In fairness to software engineering (Score:5, Funny)
So, unlikely to have been seen on slashdot before then?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Bad drivers can crash any system using a monolithic kernel.
They can crash microkernel based systems severley too--microkernel systems like Microsoft Windows NT/2k/XP/Vista. The quality of the system architecture overall is far more important than the kernel architecture chosen.
Only low level problems can cause a Windows BSOD
Not true. Driver issues are the main reason, but user-level software can behave badly too. You cite anti-virus and firewall software, which aren't exactly "low level". Developer tools are usually the worst user-level offenders.
XP these days is stable (it only took 7 years but they made it) and you won't see a blue screen using signed drivers and hardware that isn't malfunctioning.
The thing is it can be difficult to find signed drivers for yo
Re:well (Score:5, Informative)
Just a heads-up... the ROC initials usually refer to the Republic of China, which is the government in control of Taiwan. The Chinese mainland is controlled by the People's Republic of China, initials PRC. This is a really, really big distiction.
Re:well (Score:5, Funny)
Re:well (Score:5, Funny)
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Bartscht's Law of Model Railroading:
The number of problems is directly proportional to the number of spectators.
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The problem isn't the hardware, it's the drivers. I know at least some root kits will install themselves as a driver in order to get at the kernel's internals.
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Yes, it "shouldn't" be able to. And celebrities and sports stars "should" be paid relative to their contributions to society. And you "should" treat all women equally, no matter how attractive or unattractive they are.
You're talking about an ideal, the ideal that drivers should never be able to take down an OS doesn't work here in reality. It doesn't work in Windows, it doesn't work in Linux, it doesn't work in OS X. So while it's a fine ideal, stop talking about it as if it has some relevance in real life.
Re:well (Score:5, Insightful)
Be realistic for a second please, you think on show as grand as the opening ceremonies only had one glitch? Seriously?
There is no such thing as a show this big without multiple (read a lot) of glitches. They are covered up well, quickly fixed, or not noticed, but they are there. This one was just in the open for everyone to see.
Re:well (Score:5, Interesting)
>They are covered up well, quickly fixed, or not noticed, but they are there
I learned this when I saw a circus fire and noticed that the clowns put the fire out while making it look like part of the act. It was both comforting and frightening at the same time.
That was on Stadium... (Score:5, Funny)
Here's a game (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Here's a game (Score:5, Informative)
Better pic here [livefilestore.com]. Perhaps Lenovo should have used Red Flag Linux [wikipedia.org] for this mission-critical application?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
0x000000F4: CRITICAL_OBJECT_TERMINATION
One of the many processes or threads crucial to system operation has unexpectedly exited or been terminated. As a result, the system can no longer function. Specific causes are many, and often best resolved by a careful history of the problem and the circumstances of the error message. One user, who experienced this on return from Standby mode on Win XP SP2, found the cause was that Windows was installed on a slave drive; compare KB 330100.
That's probably it.
Might as well get used to it (Score:5, Interesting)
Visible computer glitches pop up in the most unexpected places these days. I went to a 25th anniversay screening of Wargames at a local theater recently. I wasn't even aware that I was in a digital theater until about halfway through the movie their server lost connection to the host and the movie theater screen suddenly turned into a giant Windows desktop. It was a little unnerving (I had thought I was looking at an actual film).
I think it's something we will just get used to seeing in this increasingly digital age. I just hope I'm not driving down the street one day and see a "lost connection to server" message flashing on a stoplight.
Re:Might as well get used to it (Score:5, Funny)
That would totally freak me out.
Re:Might as well get used to it (Score:4, Funny)
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The displays in the Red Line/Purple Line subway of LA's Metro Rail system are all on some embedded version of Windows. I've seen bluescreens and other errors, plus one time when you actually saw the desktop. With Internet Exploder and Windows Media Player among the icons on the desktop. It's not as crucial as a stoplight or an ATM but it's disheartening to see. Another place Windows runs in the LA transit system is on the monitors on almost every bus showing entertainment and ad programming to the captive a
Eh, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
All computers crash - I've made Linux, BSD, OSX, and Solaris machines kernel panic. Hell, I've witnessed a newer zSeries mainframe crash.
The fact that it happened at an inopportune moment is unfortunate, but that's life.
Re:Eh, so what? (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, a zSeries mainframe crashing at an opportune moment would be more remarkable than it crashing at an inopportune one.
Re:Eh, so what? (Score:5, Funny)
"All computers crash - I've made Linux, BSD, OSX, and Solaris machines kernel panic. Hell, I've witnessed a newer zSeries mainframe crash."
And you seem so proud of that. The goal is to make the systems function, not crash.
Re:Eh, so what? (Score:5, Funny)
Not if you are in QA/testing...
Re:Eh, so what? (Score:5, Funny)
Honestly, they should just make it a black screen with some fireworks and a "Congratulations, You Crashed Windows Again!". You know, make it a more positive experience for the user.
Re:Eh, so what? (Score:5, Funny)
All computers crash - I've made Linux, BSD, OSX, and Solaris machines kernel panic. Hell, I've witnessed a newer zSeries mainframe crash.
You are not invited into my house anymore.
omg! Proof! (Score:5, Funny)
We're living in the Matrix! And the Matrix runs Windows!
No wonder my life is a pile of shit. :)
Re:omg! Proof! (Score:5, Funny)
You are about to bend a spoon.
Cancel or Allow?
Re:omg! Proof! (Score:5, Funny)
Abort,Retry,Fail
Where the haha tag? (Score:3, Funny)
Seriously where's the haha tag?
Faked (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Faked (Score:4, Funny)
... Eh, so what? ... (Score:3, Insightful)
making bad engineering acceptable (Score:4, Insightful)
...It's not uncommon to get a BSOD from time to time.
And unless you do something about it, like vote with your wallet, you are simply helping Bill and his minions make bad engineering acceptable.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I bet the guy in charge and the Chinese government don't see it your way.
Glitch happens, but for ceremonies like this one, this isn't a little glitch. If people notice, it's bad, specially if you're trying to impress people.
computing resources ... :) (Score:3, Funny)
You mean just to project a video onto the roof. I've got an old 500MB, PC that can play DVDs without problem. It runs on Yoper [yoper.com], you should try it, runs encrypted DVDs straight out of the box, no config issues.
BSOD? Big deal! (Score:5, Insightful)
They were Axon mediaservers running WinXP Embedded (Score:3, Informative)
They were Axon mediaservers running WinXP Embedded: http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS4787005167.html [windowsfordevices.com]
Some of the video projectors (70 of about 160 if I recall correctly) connected to those mediaservers were equipped with HES Orbital Head ( http://www.highend.com/products/digital_lighting/orbitalhead.asp [highend.com] ), which can explain the odd positioning of BSOD.
BSOD was CGI! (Score:5, Funny)
DL3 media server failure (Score:5, Informative)
I believe most of the projections were handled by HighEnd Systems DL2s and DL3s. Essentially a projector on a moving yoke, with a few extra features. Each DL2 or DL3 has its own built-in media server running Win XP Embedded.
Even if the built-in media server fell over (which is what this looked like), there is still DMX control over the unit. Pan, tilt, focus and more importantly beam blanking and projector power are still controllable. It would have been easy to shut the faulty unit down and still carry on with the show (and yes, I do work with this kind of gear).
On this scale of event, they would have had multiple operators dedicated to watching over particular areas in case of such a fault. It looks like someone wasn't paying attention.
When at the Olympics (Score:3, Informative)
you perform your very best.
lets face it, BSOD is the face of Windows.
you cannot have Windows at a major event without it participating, by doing what it does best. just like the athletes.
What about Red Flag Linux? (Score:3, Insightful)
They could've used Red Flag Linux for free. Was it not up to the task, period?
Everyone is missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't matter if using Vista would have cost twice as much, taken three times as long to set up and resulted in four times as many errors during the opening ceremony. What people saw fail was XP, and that's what Microsoft will stress.
Re:Oh, stop it! (Score:5, Funny)
You're talking about BillG's asscheek, right? : p
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BSOD's are no longer a problem! They haven't been since Windows XP! BSOD's were only a problem in the Win 9x days!
Strictly speaking BSODs were never a problem in Windows 9x because, originally, BSOD was an NT-specific term for the kernel dump screen.
The explosion of ignorance on the internets in the late '90s, however, means that even the Windows 95 errors that popped up a blue DOS screen are now referred to as BSODs (even though they frequently lacked the "OD" part).
Re:Oh, stop it! (Score:5, Funny)
Ah! Keeping it in mint condition, I see.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Bill was there? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bill was there? (Score:4, Funny)
Please... no single human could code that much bloat.
Re:Doesnt look like a BSOD... (Score:4, Informative)
Um... Mac still has them, they're just grey screens of death with an apple logo and an even-less-informative error message (in half a dozen languages).
Re:Doesnt look like a BSOD... (Score:5, Funny)
I pay Apple alot of money to ensure no BSODs.
No, you pay them a lot of money for "ooh shiney".
Re:Doesnt look like a BSOD... (Score:4, Informative)
More accurately, you pay Apple a great deal of money so you have exactly one person to blame if you get a crash. BSODs in Windows are (99% of the time anyway) a matter of bad third party drivers. Apple has an easier time of it because they only support a small range of hardware in predictable configurations; MS has to test enormous numbers of drivers for every conceivable x86/amd64/ia64 configuration. Linux splits the difference; in theory they support the greatest number of configurations, but in practice support for new hardware comes slowly, and with no guarantees.