Ok, did that but have no idea what to look for. I was not able to access the 'messages' file, no matter what I did via Live CD or while in the installed OS, I could not get permission to access it, even logged in as root.
The files I was able to get (I just got anything that I thought might help)
dmesg
dmesg.old
pm-powersave.log
pm-suspend.log
Xorg.old.log
Xorg.9.log
What info will help that I can get from these files? Anything? Like I said no matter what I tried, I could not gain access to the 'messages' file.
[root@littleboy ~]# ls -l /var/log |grep messages-rw------- 1 root root 102222 2010-11-08 22:20 messages
-rw------- 1 root root 42475 2010-11-07 04:02 messages.1.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 23573 2010-10-31 04:02 messages.2.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 50311 2010-10-26 16:11 messages.3.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 80141 2010-10-17 04:02 messages.4.gz
Owned by root so editable as root. As messages is appended to, rather than started new with each boot, anything interesting will be in the last 10-20 lines before the kernel panic, at the end of the file. I just opened mine with kwrite, as root. Nothing really interesting except to see how often it makes log entries.
Nov 8 22:18:30 littleboy klogd: generic-usb 0003:045E:0029.0051: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.00 Mouse [Microsoft Microsoft IntelliMouse® Optical] on usb-0000:00:02.0-3/input0
Nov 8 22:20:18 littleboy klogd: usb 2-3: USB disconnect, address 83
Nov 8 22:20:18 littleboy klogd: usb 2-3: new low speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 84
Nov 8 22:20:18 littleboy klogd: usb 2-3: New USB device found, idVendor=045e, idProduct=0029
Nov 8 22:20:18 littleboy klogd: usb 2-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
Nov 8 22:20:18 littleboy klogd: usb 2-3: Product: Microsoft IntelliMouse® Optical
Nov 8 22:20:18 littleboy klogd: usb 2-3: Manufacturer: Microsoft
Nov 8 22:20:18 littleboy klogd: input: Microsoft Microsoft IntelliMouse® Optical as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/usb2/2-3/2-3:1.0/input/input87
Nov 8 22:20:18 littleboy klogd: generic-usb 0003:045E:0029.0052: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.00 Mouse [Microsoft Microsoft IntelliMouse® Optical] on usb-0000:00:02.0-3/input0
Nov 8 22:24:45 littleboy ntpd_initres[10495]: host name not found: 0.us.pool.ntp.org
Nov 8 22:24:45 littleboy ntpd_initres[10495]: host name not found: 1.us.pool.ntp.org
Nov 8 22:24:45 littleboy ntpd_initres[10495]: host name not found: 2.us.pool.ntp.org
My USB mouse has a small break in one of the wires, so the signal often gets interrupted, and a new disconnect message is generated, but the mouse is re recognized almost instantly and a new instance is generated. The mouse keeps on working but the message tells me I should probably fix it before it gets worse. The lines shown are from line 1076 to 1087, at the end of the file.