Logs and reporting problems

Reporting a problem

Report problems on GitHub. Say what you did, what you expected and what happened, which computer it is (its model and graphics), and whether Windows is on it. A photo helps when the problem is on screen before the desktop.

What to collect

Right after something goes wrong, these show the most. Run them in Tern:

Command	Shows
journalctl -b > boot.log	Everything since the computer started
journalctl -b -1 > previous-boot.log	The start before, for crashes, freezes and failed wake-ups. Restart first
journalctl -b --user	Messages from your own session and apps
coredumpctl list	Programs that crashed
bootc status	The installed versions and which one is running
sudo trustctl status	Secure Boot, keys, the TPM and encryption
sudo dmesg > kernel.log	Kernel messages, for graphics, sleep and devices
lspci -nnk and lsusb	The hardware and its drivers
vainfo	Video decoding
wpctl status	Sound devices

Recent problems

Settings, under About, lists the last ten times the graphics driver stopped responding, with what happened and what can help. On NVIDIA graphics, NVIDIA’s own nvidia-bug-report.sh collects a full report.

Logs from Try Luft

When Luft runs from Meet Luft, it saves its logs where Meet Luft keeps it, so a problem on your hardware can be looked at from Windows or your other Linux afterwards. It saves a minute after starting, every five minutes after that, right after an app crashes, and when it shuts down, so pulling the plug loses a few minutes at most. Luft started from a USB stick saves nothing.

Each start gets one zip, named after the time it started. The last five are kept.

• In Meet Luft, Ctrl+Shift+L copies the newest zip to your desktop.
• On Linux, they’re in Meet Luft’s folder, under Luft logs.
• On Windows, they’re on the partition labelled Luft, which has no drive letter. This copies them to a folder you can open, in PowerShell:

$luft = (Get-Volume -FileSystemLabel Luft).Path
Copy-Item -LiteralPath "${luft}Luft logs" -Destination "$env:TEMP\Luft logs" -Recurse

A zip holds the whole journal, the desktop’s own messages, crashes with backtraces, kernel messages, the hardware and its drivers, the graphics and video decoding drivers, and the boot splash’s state. Meet Luft’s reference lists every file.