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

[damian]

Mario Vukelic wrote:
> 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
>   
Thanks for that. Here's the output I get from dmesg on the worse machine.

http://gingermagic.com/misc/dmesg-sun4nov2007

I looked at the logs folder, but was a bit intimidated by it and didn't 
know where to start or what to look for.

Damian