From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

Lately I've been having trouble with Bookworm, on both a Pi5
and a Pi2B (32 bit), in which the Raspberry menu is used to
launch applications but seemingly nothing happens. No error
message pops up, it's as if I never even tried. Presumably
something had a fatal error, but where should I look for
the epitaph?

This happens most often with Firefox and Chromium browsers,
but occasionally happens with things like LX Terminal, which
I'd expect to be more robust.

There doesn't seem to be a /var/log/messages, as I'm accustomed
to checking, and ISTR Windows used a dedicated application for
watching system messages. Is there such a beast in Bookworm?

I haven't yet hooked up a serial console cable but could if that's
the only way to see what happened.

Thanks for reading!

bob prohaska

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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

On 08/07/2026 18:26, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Lately I've been having trouble with Bookworm, on both a Pi5
and a Pi2B (32 bit), in which the Raspberry menu is used to
launch applications but seemingly nothing happens. No error
message pops up, it's as if I never even tried. Presumably
something had a fatal error, but where should I look for
the epitaph?

You could dredge through systemd logs.

This happens most often with Firefox and Chromium browsers,
but occasionally happens with things like LX Terminal, which
I'd expect to be more robust.

It is unclear as to exactly what you are doing.
Wjat code is being launched and exactly how?

There doesn't seem to be a /var/log/messages, as I'm accustomed
to checking, and ISTR Windows used a dedicated application for
watching system messages. Is there such a beast in Bookworm?

I haven't yet hooked up a serial console cable but could if that's
the only way to see what happened.

ssh?

Thanks for reading!

bob prohaska

--
Gun Control: The law that ensures that only criminals have guns.

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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

bp@www.zefox.net writes:

Lately I've been having trouble with Bookworm, on both a Pi5
and a Pi2B (32 bit), in which the Raspberry menu is used to
launch applications but seemingly nothing happens. No error
message pops up, it's as if I never even tried. Presumably
something had a fatal error, but where should I look for
the epitaph?

This happens most often with Firefox and Chromium browsers,
but occasionally happens with things like LX Terminal, which
I'd expect to be more robust.

There doesn't seem to be a /var/log/messages, as I'm accustomed
to checking, and ISTR Windows used a dedicated application for
watching system messages. Is there such a beast in Bookworm?

Standard error from applications launched from the desktop historically
(and at least to some extent, still) goes to a file in your home
directory. Watch it with:

tail -f ~/.xsession-errors

Some things log to the user journal:

journalctl --user --follow

Depending on the cause of the problem the kernel log may also be
informative:

journalctl --dmesg --follow
--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

bp@www.zefox.net writes:

Lately I've been having trouble with Bookworm, on both a Pi5
and a Pi2B (32 bit), in which the Raspberry menu is used to
launch applications but seemingly nothing happens. No error
message pops up, it's as if I never even tried. Presumably
something had a fatal error, but where should I look for
the epitaph?

This happens most often with Firefox and Chromium browsers,
but occasionally happens with things like LX Terminal, which
I'd expect to be more robust.

There doesn't seem to be a /var/log/messages, as I'm accustomed
to checking, and ISTR Windows used a dedicated application for
watching system messages. Is there such a beast in Bookworm?

Standard error from applications launched from the desktop historically
(and at least to some extent, still) goes to a file in your home
directory. Watch it with:

tail -f ~/.xsession-errors

Some things log to the user journal:

journalctl --user --follow

Depending on the cause of the problem the kernel log may also be
informative:

journalctl --dmesg --follow

Thank you very much!!

bob prohaska

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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

On 08/07/2026 18:26, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

There doesn't seem to be a /var/log/messages, as I'm accustomed
to checking, and ISTR Windows used a dedicated application for
watching system messages. Is there such a beast in Bookworm?

Unfortunately due an onset of idiocy at Pi towers, starting with
Bookworm they chose to remove rsyslog and it's look-at-with-anything
textual logs, leaving you with the aberration of journald binary logging
and the need to learn the incomprehensible incantations of journalctl.

Luckily you can readily reinstall the righteous rsyslog package, so it
works like Linux (and UNIX) is meant to work.

---druck
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

On Thu, 9 Jul 2026 18:40:37 +0100, druck wrote:

Unfortunately due an onset of idiocy at Pi towers, starting with
Bookworm they chose to remove rsyslog and it's look-at-with-anything
textual logs, leaving you with the aberration of journald binary
logging and the need to learn the incomprehensible incantations of journalctl.

Luckily you can readily reinstall the righteous rsyslog package, so
it works like Linux (and UNIX) is meant to work.

Or you could run some other distro whose defaults are more to your
liking. Gods forbid you might have to make configuration changes
afterwards, eh?
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

bp@www.zefox.net writes:

Lately I've been having trouble with Bookworm, on both a Pi5
and a Pi2B (32 bit), in which the Raspberry menu is used to
launch applications but seemingly nothing happens. No error
message pops up, it's as if I never even tried. Presumably
something had a fatal error, but where should I look for
the epitaph?

This happens most often with Firefox and Chromium browsers,
but occasionally happens with things like LX Terminal, which
I'd expect to be more robust.

There doesn't seem to be a /var/log/messages, as I'm accustomed
to checking, and ISTR Windows used a dedicated application for
watching system messages. Is there such a beast in Bookworm?

Standard error from applications launched from the desktop historically
(and at least to some extent, still) goes to a file in your home
directory. Watch it with:

tail -f ~/.xsession-errors

Some things log to the user journal:

journalctl --user --follow

Depending on the cause of the problem the kernel log may also be
informative:

journalctl --dmesg --follow

Thank you!!!

bob prohaska

--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Thu, 9 Jul 2026 18:40:37 +0100, druck wrote:

Unfortunately due an onset of idiocy at Pi towers, starting with
Bookworm they chose to remove rsyslog and it's look-at-with-anything textual logs, leaving you with the aberration of journald binary
logging and the need to learn the incomprehensible incantations of journalctl.

Luckily you can readily reinstall the righteous rsyslog package, so
it works like Linux (and UNIX) is meant to work.

Or you could run some other distro whose defaults are more to your
liking. Gods forbid you might have to make configuration changes
afterwards, eh?

I manage 13 (I just counted them) systems of my own running a mix of
Raspbian (or whatever it's called now), Debian and a couple of Ubuntu.

I maintain a mercurial repository of the changes I've done in /etc on
all of them. One thing in particular is that **all** systems have
logging switched from systemd's journal to rsyslog. The same changed /etc/systemd/journald.conf is on all systems and I've installed
rsyslog. Job done and it's dead easy to do the same on any new system.
--
Chris Green
·
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

On Fri, 10 Jul 2026 08:42:08 +0100, Chris Green wrote:

I manage 13 (I just counted them) systems of my own running a mix of
Raspbian (or whatever it's called now), Debian and a couple of
Ubuntu.

One thing in particular is that **all** systems have logging
switched from systemd's journal to rsyslog.

I’m sure that works OK for system logging (except for the timestamp
issue).

But remember, the systemd journal works for per-user-session logging,
too.
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Fri, 10 Jul 2026 08:42:08 +0100, Chris Green wrote:

I manage 13 (I just counted them) systems of my own running a mix of Raspbian (or whatever it's called now), Debian and a couple of
Ubuntu.

One thing in particular is that **all** systems have logging
switched from systemd's journal to rsyslog.

I’m sure that works OK for system logging (except for the timestamp
issue).

But remember, the systemd journal works for per-user-session logging,
too.

Since I'm the only user 'per-user' logging isn't all that significant.
`
--
Chris Green
·
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

druck <news@druck.org.uk> writes:

bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

There doesn't seem to be a /var/log/messages, as I'm accustomed
to checking, and ISTR Windows used a dedicated application for
watching system messages. Is there such a beast in Bookworm?

Unfortunately due an onset of idiocy at Pi towers, starting with
Bookworm they chose to remove rsyslog and it's look-at-with-anything
textual logs,

RPi OS is following its Debian upstream here.

leaving you with the aberration of journald binary logging and the
need to learn the incomprehensible incantations of journalctl.

I don’t recognize the description of journalctl as ‘incomprehensible incantations’. It doesn’t seem any more opaque than most basic Unix commands to me. Comparing old and new:

tail -f /var/log/messages journalctl -f
grep wotsit /var/log/messages journalctl | grep wotsit
or journalctl -g wotsit
less /var/log/messages journalctl
grep kernel: /var/log/messages journalctl -k

You might have to spend a couple of minutes skimming ‘journalctl --help’
or some documentation to learn it, but the same was true of tail, grep,
etc; you’ve just already done that and got used to it.

If you really want ‘incomprehensible incantations’ try ffmpeg.

Luckily you can readily reinstall the righteous rsyslog package, so it
works like Linux (and UNIX) is meant to work.

Does “righteous” indicate that the attachment to syslog is religious
rather than practical?
--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

On Sat, 11 Jul 2026 09:31:20 +0100, Chris Green wrote:

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Fri, 10 Jul 2026 08:42:08 +0100, Chris Green wrote:

One thing in particular is that **all** systems have logging
switched from systemd's journal to rsyslog.

I’m sure that works OK for system logging (except for the timestamp
issue).

But remember, the systemd journal works for per-user-session logging,
too.

Since I'm the only user 'per-user' logging isn't all that significant.

It is for users of GUI apps, which is most Linux desktop users.

That includes the poster who asked the question that started this
thread.
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