Niloc Posted November 20, 2008 Share Posted November 20, 2008 I am running Ubuntu on a 64bit system. At startup I get a full screen of errors but it scrolls too quickly to read properly. To get Thunderbird and firefox to work I sometimes have to switch off completely and restart two or three times. Is there an error logging system where I can find out what is happening? Colin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slackula Posted November 20, 2008 Share Posted November 20, 2008 All system errors should be viewable in the /var/log/ folder. /var/log/messages : General log messages /var/log/boot : System boot log /var/log/debug : Debugging log messages /var/log/auth.log : User login and authentication logs /var/log/daemon.log : Running services such as squid, ntpd and others log message to this file /var/log/dmesg : Linux kernel ring buffer log /var/log/dpkg.log : All binary package log includes package installation and other information /var/log/faillog : User failed login log file /var/log/kern.log : Kernel log file /var/log/lpr.log : Printer log file /var/log/mail.* : All mail server message log files /var/log/mysql.* : MySQL server log file /var/log/user.log : All userlevel logs /var/log/xorg.0.log : X.org log file /var/log/apache2/* : Apache web server log files directory /var/log/lighttpd/* : Lighttpd web server log files directory /var/log/fsck/* : fsck command log /var/log/apport.log : Application crash report / log file You can read them by typing 'tail', 'less', 'more' or 'cat' (without the '') and then the name of the file you want to read in a terminal, eg: tail /var/log/messages to show the last 10 (by default) system messages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave_boo Posted November 20, 2008 Share Posted November 20, 2008 Also, dmesg will show you errors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niloc Posted November 20, 2008 Author Share Posted November 20, 2008 Thanks fellas, one more question, how do I clear the message file so I know which messages are new? Colin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slackula Posted November 20, 2008 Share Posted November 20, 2008 Thanks fellas, one more question, how do I clear the message file so I know which messages are new?Colin If you use 'tail' to view the files you can do it in the form of tail -500 /var/log/foo to show the last 500 lines of foo or, possibly more useful is to have a terminal window open and then run tail -f /var/log/foo to keep the log file open and view new messages as they are generated and added to it, this is good if a program is crashing because it shows you exactly what is happening prior to the crash. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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