Ubuntu linux: using dmesg to find bootup messages

To view your bootup messages, open a terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal in Ubuntu 10.04 etc.) and type:

dmesg

There can be a lot of information, so I like to use less to navigate through the message:

dmesg | less

(Use the spacebar to advance the text and ‘q’ to quit.)

If you want to save all the information to a file so that you can send it to someone or post it online, you can type:

dmesg > whatever_you_want_to_call_the_file

If you’ve just opened a terminal, you’re probably in your home directory; that’s where the file will appear.

(Make sure you don’t use the name of an existing file. If you want to check what other files are in your current directory, type ls on the command line.)