Guru Meditation started as an error notice displayed by the Amiga computer when it crashes. It is now also used by Varnish, a software component used by many content-heavy websites. This has led to many internet users seeing a "Guru Meditation" message when these websites suffer crashes or other issues. It is analogous to the "Blue Screen of Death" in Microsoft Windows operating systems, or a kernel panic in Unix.
Guru Meditation on a 3DS playing a Homebrew DS game.
In computing, a crash, or system crash, occurs when a computer program such as a software application or an operating system stops functioning properly and exits. On some operating systems or individual applications, a crash reporting service will report the crash and any details relating to it, usually to the developer(s) of the application. If the program is a critical part of the operating system, the entire system may crash or hang, often resulting in a kernel panic or fatal system error.
A kernel panic displayed on an iMac. This is the most common form of an operating system failure in Unix-like systems.
A display at Frankfurt Airport running a program under Windows XP that has crashed due to a memory read access violation
A kernel panic as displayed in OS X Mountain Lion
