Panic Feedback
Panic Feedback
- Subject: Panic Feedback
- From: email@hidden
- Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 05:50:41 -0500
Hi all,
I joined this list mostly to observe and learn a little without
getting in the way, but I thought I'd offer an idea I have been thinking
about. Apple has done a great job of hiding the CLI from the average
user, while leaving access for the advanced users in place. Further, I
think it's great that Apple asks users to report information generated
during a panic, but should they need to read a KBase article to realize
that?
If I'm a user who's never heard of a kernel panic and I suddenly
get thrown out of my warm and fuzzy Aqua and into some strange text
dump, I'm probably not going to consider writing down what appears on
the screen. "We're hanging here..." is enough for a developer or
advanced user to know what's going on and the correct procedure, but why
not offer an explanation and directions for the general user? I'm not a
kernel hacker, but it looks like you could just add a printf and
something along the lines of the following:
"Mac OS X has crashed and the system must be restarted. Please record
the entire text that was generated on the screen to aid Apple in
investigating the cause of this error. For information on how to report
a kernel panic, please visit
http://www.apple.com/support/.";
or something akin to that. Panics are extremely rare under OS X (for
most people anyway), but I believe including a simple message to the
user, such as the above, would greatly increase the likelihood that
people would report them when they do occur.
- George