“Often someone will write to a Linux help list asking for
help with a particular device they want to get working under Linux,
and a standard reply is “check the output of the dmesg command”.
This leaves a lot of new users befuddled, and this document is here
to hopefully help them navigate this powerful debugging tool.
Two sets of kernel boot messages are presented and annotated, from
an i386 system and a Linux-Pmac system.”
“The Linux kernel is the central interface between the user and
the hardware. As such, it has to incorporate support for hardware
if you are to use it. Often, though, cryptic device names are used
by the system, making it difficult at first inspection to determine
if some particular hardware is supported. The command ‘dmesg’,
which is used to print kernel messages, is very useful in
determining if a piece of hardware has been found, and if so, what
the system is referring to it as.”
“This artcle, including the title and format of the dmesg
comments, were directly inspired and copied from the OpenBSD
Explained article by the same name. I felt one on Linux would be
useful for people.”