Linux's DRM Panic "Screen of Death" Sees Patches For QR Code Error Messages

Linux 6.10 introduces DRM Panic for providing a new panic screen in case of kernel errors and situations where the VT support may be disabled. This new kernel functionality is akin to Windows' Blue Screen of Death or thanks to open-source can be adapted to take on other forms such as a black screen of death and conveying monochrome logos rather than ASCII art. New patches provide for the ability to show QR codes of error messages within the DRM Panic screens.

As kernel error messages can be quite lengthy especially if including a stack trace and at times not even fitting the contents within the screen, patches posted today allow for condensing kernel error messages into QR codes. This can make it easy to capture the error message easily with a smartphone for later analysis or easily attaching to a bug report, etc.

This isn't the first time using QR codes for kernel error messages has been talked about... Ten years ago I wrote about kernel developers looking at QR codes for error messages. Windows and other operating systems have also explored using QR codes within their error messages.

Jocelyn Falempe of Red Hat today posted the set of four patches for implementing a "qr_code" panic screen. Making this all the more interesting is the DRM Panic QR code handler being written within the Rust programming language. Jocelyn commented on the reasoning behind writing this QR code generator in Rust, "There is no particular reason to do it in rust, I just wanted to learn rust, and see if it can work in the kernel."

Here are some examples from Jocelyn Falempe of the QR code DRM Panic support in action:

The code is now under review on the mailing list for those interested.