Linus Torvalds Defends Windows' Blue Screen of Death

We all have seen countless memes and jokes about Microsoft Windows' blue of screen death popularly known as BSOD.

Microsoft did make changes to handle the criticism and jokes. They changed the blue color to black 😆

So, it is still BSOD, blue or black, doesn't matter. The black screen surely mixes with Linux's very own kernel panic screen. Microsoft is taking notes from Linux, it seems.

The reason I am talking about Blue Screen of Death is that Linux creator Linus Torvalds recently defended Microsoft for these error screens. Well, sort of.

Not entirely a software issue: Torvalds

By now you might have been aware that Linus Torvalds did a non-serious, fun video with Linus Sebastian of Linus Tech Tips. They built a PC together.

In that video, Sebastian discussed Torvalds' fondness for ECC (Error Correction Code). I am using their last name because Linus will be confused with Linus.

This is where Torvalds says this:

I am convinced that all the jokes about how unstable Windows is and blue screening, I guess it's not a blue screen anymore, a big percentage of those were not actually software bugs. A big percentage of those are hardware being not reliable.

Torvalds further mentioned that gamers who overclock get extra unreliability.

Essentially, Torvalds believes that having ECC on the machine makes them more reliable, makes you trust your machine. Without ECC, the memory will go bad, sooner or later.

He thinks that more than software bugs, often it is hardware behind Microsoft's blue screen of death.

I am no hardware expert, and even if I was, I could not disagree with the OG Linus.

The part where Torvalds talks about the Windows blue screen of death starts around 9:37. The ECC part comes is just before that. The embed video below starts at 9:37 for your comfort.

If you have not already, do watch the full video. It is good to see the casual, fun, human side of one of the greatest computing legends alive, Linus Sebastian. Oops, sorry. Linus Torvalds 😀