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Re: Using old (not systemd) system logs



On Fri, Dec 12, 2025 at 15:22:37 +0100, Nicolas George wrote:
> Paul M. Foster (HE12025-12-12):
> > Really? Well, I just asked search.brave.com this question:
> > 
> > "are systemd system logs binary rather than plain text"
> > 
> > And the answer was "Yes".
> 
> Then by all means trust a LLM.

This isn't helpful.

The *DEFAULT* logging under systemd is the binary journal which can
only be read by systemd's command set.  *BY DEFAULT* you have no
human-readable log files, meaning you cannot read them with a comfortable
and familiar command line interface, nor can you read them by mounting
the (partially failed?) disk in a different system for post mortem
analysis, and so on.

To get human-readable log files in addition to the default journal,
install the rsyslog package.

To get human-readable log files *instead* of the default journal,
Michel Verdier gave us a recipe at
<https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2025/12/msg00122.html>.


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