boot time messages

[clickit]

Where can I go to find information on the meaning of the boot time messages which scroll across my screen. I know there are some (version 12.0) which when I investigated, was told it is of no consequence and to ignore it. That is not good enough for me. I do not want to sign up for some course as my $1500 for network administration course taught me nothing relavently new and do not want to repeat such a mistake. I'd rather just read about it online.

[Freston]

You probably know (or should, after spending that much bread) that you can read the boot time messages at your leisure by typing `dmesg` and pipe it into anything you are interested in. `less` or `grep` are always good candidates here.

What's happening on your screen during boot is closely tied to the initialization process. You can find something about slackware's init process here. And a little more about the boot sequence here.

Although I can't help but think that you are referring to the error messages Slackware 12.0 spits out during boot. If you are talking about the same messages, those are inconsequential but indeed very ugly. I seem to recall you can get them out by recompiling your kernel.

[clickit]

Thanks for the reply, unfortunately I probably did not explain well enough what I was looking at/for.
I know that dmesg outputs at least some of the boottime info but one has to scratch about looking for what one wants as there is no 1:1 output relation between these boottime messages and dmesg (at least as far as I can observe).

Thanks for pointing out the init & bootup sites but that is not what I am looking for.
Perhaps I am expecting too much but what I would like is something like (in my simplistic way):
scsi: <fdomain> Detection failed (no card)
MEANS: no scsi card found --ok I knew that!
sym53c416.csym53c416.c: Version 1.0.0-ac
MEANS: "what??? is a sym53c416.c " and what does it do or needed for?
qlogicfas: no cards were found, please specify I/O address and IRQ using
MEANS: qlogicfas whazzat? I agree if U aint got it it is meaningless but...
iobase= and irq= options<6>QLogic Fibre Channel HBA Driver
iscsi: registered transport (qla4xxx)
QLogic iSCSI HBA Driver
Emulex LightPulse Fibre Channel SCSI driver 8.1.11
Copyright(c) 2004-2006 Emulex. All rights reserved.
seagate: ST0x/TMC-8xx not detected.
MEANS: <why was it looking for this? can't is see I aint got one? does it want one?>
Failed initialization of WD-7000 SCSI card!

I want to know what it is looking for and why since it it tells me it is/not finding it then it should be able to say why it was looking -- am I asking too much?
Lots of what is in the above is either obvious or I am being knit picking but I still want to know.
I know the developers must know why it is emitting the messages so somewhere there must be an explanation.

[jayd512]

I'm definitely no expert on this, but Google provides most of the info that you're asking about. Just one example... qlogicfas... seems it's missing the SCSI drivers for the card you don't have. Most of the messages, as you know, are going to be rather cryptic. But the info is indeed out there on the interweb for you.

[Freston]

Yeah, I'm afraid there's not a whole lot I can offer you than Google

[clickit]

Hey thanks to all. You have confirmed for me what I kind of suspected.
Yes I do use google for solutions to problems as they arise but I was hoping someone had wasted their time (i.e. not mine LOL) to do a semi tech explanation of these messages just so I can get a better feeling. I'd do it but my research is in another direction. Thanks again.