diff -r e4a23d294f48 -r e399e6b44631 hotspot/src/os/linux/vm/os_linux.cpp
--- a/hotspot/src/os/linux/vm/os_linux.cpp	Wed Nov 18 22:00:09 2015 +0000
+++ b/hotspot/src/os/linux/vm/os_linux.cpp	Wed Nov 25 16:33:28 2015 +0100
@@ -4970,7 +4970,7 @@
 void os::print_statistics() {
 }
 
-int os::message_box(const char* title, const char* message) {
+bool os::message_box(const char* title, const char* message) {
   int i;
   fdStream err(defaultStream::error_fd());
   for (i = 0; i < 78; i++) err.print_raw("=");
@@ -5995,6 +5995,34 @@
   return strlen(buffer);
 }
 
+bool os::start_debugging(char *buf, int buflen) {
+  int len = (int)strlen(buf);
+  char *p = &buf[len];
+
+  jio_snprintf(p, buflen-len,
+             "\n\n"
+             "Do you want to debug the problem?\n\n"
+             "To debug, run 'gdb /proc/%d/exe %d'; then switch to thread " UINTX_FORMAT " (" INTPTR_FORMAT ")\n"
+             "Enter 'yes' to launch gdb automatically (PATH must include gdb)\n"
+             "Otherwise, press RETURN to abort...",
+             os::current_process_id(), os::current_process_id(),
+             os::current_thread_id(), os::current_thread_id());
+
+  bool yes = os::message_box("Unexpected Error", buf);
+
+  if (yes) {
+    // yes, user asked VM to launch debugger
+    jio_snprintf(buf, sizeof(buf), "gdb /proc/%d/exe %d",
+                     os::current_process_id(), os::current_process_id());
+
+    os::fork_and_exec(buf);
+    yes = false;
+  }
+  return yes;
+}
+
+
+
 /////////////// Unit tests ///////////////
 
 #ifndef PRODUCT