When a billboard survives the wind, but not the boot
- Reference: 1775210414
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/04/03/when_a_billboard_survives_the/
- Source link:
Sent in by an eagle-eyed Register reader, the borked billboard was spotted in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The billboard appears to have survived the recent storms intact. But the boot process? Not so much.
[1]
A billboard showing a GRUB message (click to enlarge)
Many Linux distributions use GRUB (short for GRand Unified Bootloader) to handle system startup. It loads the bare minimum to boot the Linux kernel and usually keeps itself to itself. Unless something has gone a bit awry... as we saw in the case of [2]the "incident on the bus" or here, where a cheery welcome message is shown and then... nothing. The cause could be anything from a corrupted configuration file to a missing boot device.
Help! Does anyone on the bus know Linux? [3]READ MORE
"To be fair to the poor sign," our reader noted, "much of the city had been out of power that day due to winds gusting to 92mph (148kph).
"The screen for the other direction was functioning properly however, so that can't be a complete excuse."
[4]Ubuntu 26.04 beta arrives packing GNOME 50, which no longer supports Google Drive
[5]To BSOD or not to BSOD? Only Microsoft knows the answer
[6]Smart mirror shows dumb Windows in elevator
[7]Microsoft finally gets around to fixing Windows 10 Recovery Environment after breaking it in October
Then again, this could be a stripped-down marketing campaign for a local eatery. This is America, after all. "Grub" is a Britishism that made it across the Atlantic intact and can mean some hearty sustenance just as much as it might carry significance for a Linux fan. Or it could refer to the wriggling larva featured in a certain Australia-based celebrity reality television show.
Thankfully, the language of bork is universal. The French might call a Blue Screen of Death écran bleu de la mort , but the BSOD acronym reigns supreme. And here, any lover of Linux, regardless of their country of origin, will know that GRUB making its presence known on a roadside billboard means that somehow, somewhere, an administrator is having a very bad day indeed. ®
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[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2026/03/30/bork.jpg
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/02/bus_linux/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/02/bus_linux/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/31/ubuntu_2604_beta/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/28/rsac_bork/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/12/smart_mirror_or_dumb_windows/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/06/microsoft_finally_gets_around_to/
[8] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
It's an Improvement!
There's something kinda funny about an enthusiastic welcome message being shown when things are broken. It's probably an improvement over what was supposed to be shown, and way better than than an BSOD screen.
Well you see...
That's actually a new campaign to advertise GRUB; the sign is working correctly. The fact that there is a different sign on the back is actually just how billboards work-- if you are entering a city you might see a billboard advertising a museum for example, but it wouldn't make sense to see that when you are leaving, so they often have different advertisement on either side. Alternatively, and possibly funnier given the context-- many billboards are single-sided, especially if one side isn't visible from a road, so maybe the wind caused the sign to swivel around!
If it has been really windy, maybe the best thing to do would just be to LILO until it’s all blown over…?