SLOW boot and LONG wait when logging out to switch users.

[Mario Vukelic]

On Fri, 2007-11-02 at 19:54 +0000, damian wrote:   
> I'm afraid 'the usual' is abstract and unusual to me. I'm starting to 
> get my head around Linux a bit, but it's taking time.
> 
> I just typed:
> 
> dmesg, /var/logs
> 
> into my Ubuntu box via SSH and it said command not found. No doubt I did 
> completely the wrong thing with your instruction.

An important thing to learn is to read the error messages and log
entries _carefully. In contrast to Windows they are most of the time
very helpful when interpreted correctly.

The output is actually:
bash: dmesg,: command not found
          ^^^  <- Note the comma

NoOp just used a shorthand for what he really meant: "did you run the
"dmesg" command, and did you check the logfiles in /var/log?"

"dmesg" is a command that prints the boot messages of the kernel. The
man page for dmesg says:

"NAME
       dmesg - print or control the kernel ring buffer

SYNOPSIS
       dmesg [ -c ] [ -n level ] [ -s bufsize ]

DESCRIPTION
       dmesg is used to examine or control the kernel ring buffer.

       The program helps users to print out their bootup messages.
Instead of copying the messages by hand, the user need only:
              dmesg > boot.messages
       and mail the boot.messages file to whoever can debug their
problem.

OPTIONS
(...)"

So, you just enter "dmesg" in a terminal to see the messages, or you can
use "dmesg > filename" to save them.

To see the logs, you can open the menu System | Administration, and
choose "System Logs". Even more can be found by going to /var/log with
the file manager or in the terminal, and check the logs there. The ones
ending in *.gz are older logs that have been compressed.

Cheers
Mario