bsod(1)

bsod1

Blue screen of death emulator

Usage

bsod [-display host:display.screen] [-foreground color] [-background color] [-window] [-root] [-mono] [-install] [-visual visual] [-delay seconds]

Overview

The bsod program is the finest in personal computer emulation.

bsod steps through a set of screens, each one a recreation of a different failure mode of an operating system. Systems depicted include Microsoft's Windows 95 and Windows NT, Commodore-Amiga's AmigaDOS 1.3, SPARC Linux, SCO UNIX, the Apple Macintosh (both the MacsBug debugger and the rarer "Sad Mac"), and the Atari ST.

Options

bsod accepts the following options:

-window

Draw on a newly-created window. This is the default.

-root

Draw on the root window.

-mono

If on a color display, pretend we're on a monochrome display.

-install

Install a private colormap for the window.

-visual visual

Specify which visual to use. Legal values are the name of a visual class, or the id number (decimal or hex) of a specific visual.

-delay delay

The delay between displaying one crash and another.

Environment

DISPLAY

to get the default host and display number.

XENVIRONMENT

to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.

X resources

Notable X resources supported include the following, which control which hacks are displayed and which aren't. doWindows, doNT, doAmiga, doMac, doMacsBug, doSCO, doAtari, doBlitDamage, doSparcLinux, and doSSolaris. Each of these is a Boolean resource, they all default to true, except for doSparcLinux and doAtari, which are turned off by default, because they're really not all that interesting looking unless you're a fan of those systems. There aren't command-line options for these, so to change them, you'll need to add entries to your .Xdefaults file, or use the -xrm option. For example, to tell bsod not to show the NT crash:

bsod -xrm '*doNT: false'

Trademarks

Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows 95, and Microsoft Windows NT are all registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Apple Macintosh is a registered trademark of Apple Computer. Amiga is a registered trademark of Amiga International, Inc. Atari ST is probably a trademark, too, but it's hard to tell who owns it. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds, but it isn't his fault.

Releases

2 releases since Debian 2.2 (Potato); the text changed 1 time.

  1. 2.2
  2. 3.0

Bugs

Unlike the systems that the images are borrowed from, bsod does not require a reboot after running.

bsod should also emulate more systems, but systems with interesting crash graphics are not as common as one might hope.

One I'd really like to see is a Unix system getting a kernel panic, rebooting, and running fsck(8).

Author

Concept cribbed from Stephen Martin <[email protected]>. This version is by Jamie Zawinski <[email protected]>.

From xscreensaver 3.34-3 in Debian 3.0 (Woody). Parsed by carta from the page's man source.