Re: Why is troubleshooting Linux so hard?

[Borden Rhodes <jrvp@bordenrhodes.com>]

(Sorry for the late reply to a thread started way back)

I'm pleased for all of the feedback and that I'm not the only person
who's frustrated.  I tried proposing to debian-policy that it be
mandatory that all logs have timestamps
http://lists.debian.org/debian-policy/2010/02/msg00035.html but my
suggestion was dismissed because it was considered too hard to enforce.
I responded http://lists.debian.org/debian-policy/2010/08/msg00043.html
saying that it shouldn't be very difficult to enforce or implement at
all.

Linux already has a huge troubleshooting database: Google.  The trouble
is that simply copying-and-pasting an error message into Google with a
program or package name (assuming you know whose fault it is) doesn't
generate very useful results.  The most useful change, therefore, would
be to improve the quality of the error messages.

I just want to say that I like KDE's auto-crash popup and it would be
nice to have implemented Linux-wide.  Of course, the trick is when you
don't have the appropriate debugging packages installed to install them
and regenerate the crash report before it goes away.

What would it take to get some error message standards in place so that
troubleshooting Linux is possible for those of us who aren't computer
science PhD candidates?