[gayette]

I am a devoted Apple user. Having lived in awe of OS X for years, I believe I have finally arrived at the point where I might humbly offer a suggestion to the Powers.
I just had my second kernel panic in three years (nothing to worry about, I know). For those of you who don't know what this is, it's when your screen goes gray and a warning comes up in several languages (black background) telling you to restart.
Now, I'd just written 450 words of deathless prose, at high speed, and hadn't saved during that glorious time. I immediately got out pen and paper and copied what I could around the warning message to save most of what I'd written.
My simple request would be the following: could the kernel panic message please be tiny and in a corner, so that at least what is on the screen could be saved manually? Normally I save every paragraph, out of habit, but of course when the crash came I hadn't saved in ten minutes. It means a lot, and a great big 'you are dead' sign in the middle of the screen is of no help.
Any takers? And how to get this brilliant advice to the Powers?

[d00d]

Mac OS X Feedback Form

[gayette]

Thanks for the feedback link, d00d. I have sent them my humble advice.
Not to point fingers here, but the kernel panic occurred an hour after having installed a third-party iTunes floating remote control program. I won't say which it was, because I'm unqualified to assign blame in such a cavalier way.
OK, it was iTunes Track. And I'm not saying that was the problem.

[gdsegel]

Rule #1 as you know and have learned again... Save often...

[Dr-NiKoN]

In reply to:

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My simple request would be the following: could the kernel panic message please be tiny and in a corner, so that at least what is on the screen could be saved manually?

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I'm not sure how to word this, but you are asking Apple to alter something as a proposed solution to something that is outside the scope of Apple's implementation.
Microsoft Office has an auto-save function, it works pretty well. If your not satisfied with this, ask Microsoft to better their implementation. If your using another piece of software, as the developer to add such support.
You should concentrate on The Problem and possible solutions:

The problem is:
If my machine crashes, I loose my unsaved work.
The solution is:
My work needs to saved as close to the crash as possible.
OR
My machine can't crash (impossible to demand).
Changing the Kernel Panic screen or doing anything else systemwide from Apple isn't really related to the real problem.
You need to recognize that The Problem is having your worked saved at timely intervalls. Not what happens after you crash.
That's my opinion at least.

[d00d]

I think you're misunderstanding what gayette meant, Doc. I think all they're looking for is that the kernel panic notification screen use little of the screen so that what is currently being displayed can be written down by hand.

[Tom_Diola]

There is probably a log that was created when the kernel panic happened that could be examined - I forget the name of the thing. But when you install 3rd party software you always take the chance of crashing your system. (Just my 2 cents).

[Tom_Diola]

in vanilla unix systems the file that is created at the time of a crash is a 'core' file...

[Dr-NiKoN]

Or you could install a serial port and enable remote debugging. That way you would have full to RAM when the Panic occurs /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
Or you could dump the content of RAM to a permanent file in your filesystem instead of to a swap-file.
I still don't think altering the panic screen is the way to go for a solution to the problem of having unsaved work when a crash occurs.