Tracking boot messages

[Stephen Powell <zlinuxman@wowway.com>]

Hello, list.  I am trying to find a way to track boot messages.  I know about
things like

   dmesg|less

and

   less /var/log/syslog

but they don't cover everything.  For example, /etc/init.d/console-setup
issues a message during boot that goes something like this:

   Setting up console font and keymap

and this does not appear in either dmesg output or in /var/log/syslog.
Furthermore, it appears that the font change done by console-setup
kills my scrollback; so that Shift+PageUp and Shift+PageDown don't
work.  That is, I can't scroll back prior to the font change.

On some hardware platforms, such as s390, when running in a
virtual machine under z/VM, I can capture the console boot messages by
"spooling the virtual console".  But on other platforms, such as
i386, I do not know of a way to capture all the boot messages.  Does
anybody know of a way?  (I am running Debian Squeeze.)

-- 
  .''`.     Stephen Powell    
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