zlacker

The error handler is the kernel. Whatever code runs to dump the panic somewhere must rely on some sort of device driver, which in turn must depend on other kernel subsystems and possibly other drivers to work.

There is an enormous variation in output targets for a panic on Linux: graphics hardware attached to PCIe (requires graphics driver and possibly support from PCIe bus master, I don't know), serial interface (USART driver), serial via USB (serial over USB driver, USB protocol stack, USB root hub driver, whatever bus that is attached to)... There is a very real chance that the error reporting ends up encountering the same issue (e.g. some inconsistent data on the kernel heap) while reporting it, Which would leave the developers with no information to work from if the kernel traps itself in an endless error handling loop.