Problem Solving HOWTO

by Dag Wieërs, dag@mind.be

1. About the Problem Solving HOWTO

• 1.1 New Versions of this Document
• 1.2 Feedback

2. Software information

• 2.1 Finding Information on your System
• 2.2 Finding Information on the Net
• 2.3 Use the source, Luke !

3. Software problem determination

• 3.1 Reading information
• 3.2 Spotting usefull error-information
• 3.3 Understanding the meaning of an error

4. Software problem checklist

5. Software debugging tools

• 5.1 ksymoops
• 5.2 gdb
• 5.3 nm
• 5.4 objdump
• 5.5 strace
• 5.6 ltrace
• 5.7 Using your syslog
• 5.8 strings
• 5.9 file
• 5.10 ldd
• 5.11 lsof / lslk / fuser / stat / readlink
• 5.12 perl
• 5.13 od / hexdump
• 5.14 time

6. Hardware information

• 6.1 Getting system information

7. Hardware problem determination

8. Hardware problem check-list

9. Hardware debugging tools

• 9.1 memtest
• 9.2 fsck
• 9.3 pnpdump
• 9.4 isapnp
• 9.5 lspci
• 9.6 dmesg

10. Types of Problems

• 10.1 the "hey, it should behave otherwise"-problem
• 10.2 the "it returns something i don't understand"-problem
• 10.3 the "i really don't have a clue"-problem
• 10.4 the "i don't know how exactle to do this"-problem
• 10.5 the "this must be a bug"-problem

11. Types of Information

• 11.1 README-Information
• 11.2 CHANGES-Information
• 11.3 Manuals
• 11.4 Sample files
• 11.5 Website
• 11.6 Sources