Chapter 20Ten Troubleshooting TipsIn This Chapter Dealing with (Web and email hosting)
Chapter 20Ten Troubleshooting TipsIn This Chapter Dealing with frozen installations Changing your boot environment Recovering when you see some black-and-white text screen! Escaping a hung GUI Using multiple resolutionsTroubleshooting is like reading a mystery novel. You have some facts, symptoms, and details, but you don t know whodunit. You have to takewhatever information you have, work with that data, weigh the various possi- bilities, and then narrow them to a single suspect. Finally, you need to testyour theory and prove that your suspect is the guilty party. Troubleshooting problems in Linux (or any operating system) can encompassmany hardware and software issues. Whether the problem is the operatingsystem, the hardware, or a service giving you fits, you can use some basictroubleshooting techniques to start your investigations: Document the problem.Write down any and all symptoms that thesystem is showing, including actions you can and can t do. Jot down any information you see in error messages. Examine the Linux log files. You can find most of these in the /var/logdirectory. Look for the word error. Compare your problem system with a working system running thesame distribution and version. Sometimes, comparing configurationfiles and settings may uncover the problem or narrow the possibilities. Check connections.Check to make sure that all the hardware is con- nected properly and powered on. Verify that all cables and connectionsare attached properly. There s always someone, somewhere, acciden- tally kicking a cable out from a wall connection. Remove new hardware.Remove any hardware that you have changed oradded recently (before the problem started) and see whether the problemdisappears. If so, you can probably conclude that the new or changedhardware (or its driver) is the culprit and start researching solutions.