Running into a blue screen of death, but don';t want your journey to end? Well, how about dropping into a Linux shell when you hit a BSOD in Windows?
We simply register a BugCheck callback. The callback function runs a tiny RISC V emulator running linux.
For the video output we use bootvid.dll and for input we have a horrible simple polling based PS/2 keyboard driver.
↫ BugCheck2Linux GitHub page
The gist here is that during a BSOD, drivers can reset a device to a known working state and gather diagnostic data, so what the BugCheck2Linux "driver" does is load up an incredibly small RISC-V emulator, boot a Linux kernel, and drop you in a shell. An
incredibly limited shell that can barely do anything, but a shell nonetheless. And when I say "limited", I really do mean "limited": it only works on BIOS systems, runs at 640×480 in 16 colours, the shift key doesn';t work (you';ll need to use caps lock
for that), and you can';t use backspace either.
Still, this is an incredibly cool proof of concept, and I wonder if more is possible here. Who knows - this could become a valuable troubleshooting tool.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138395/bugcheck2linux-run-linux-in-a-tiny-risc-v-emulator-during-a-windows-bsod/
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