Thank you for the response. Indeed, you are correct in that my problem
isn't specific to Linux kernel troubleshooting (although I could
dedicate a website to things that don't work there) but with the
software that runs on Debian in general.
To clarify, the problem I have is when the computer freezes and crashes,
I forcibly restart the computer, and I try to trace what caused the
problem and cannot do so. I pick through the dozens of files
in /var/log/ and cannot find any clues about what caused the crash.
Even if I can find a suspicious log entry or two, Googling them directs
me to bug reports and forum posts from 2006. Almost none of these are
relevant to tracing what caused the problem.