boot errors - how see them?

[Brian Truter]

> When I boot into run level 3 I can see all the boot
> steps being OK'd, but one towards the end gets
> "Failed" but it disappears before I can see just what
> failed.  How do I see _what_ failed?
>
> When it finally boots and I log in, I did "dmesg |
> less", but I'm not sure what I'm looking for.  I
> searched for "error" and found these:
>
>   <snip>
>
> vesafb: probe of vesafb0 failed with error -6
> apm: BIOS not found.
>
>   <snip>
>
> Initializing Cryptographic API
> ksign: Installing public key data
> Loading keyring
> - Added public key 9488DB81FF525AA3
> - User ID: Red Hat, Inc. (Kernel Module GPG key)
> ksign: invalid packet (ctb=00)
> Unable to load default keyring: error=74
> pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
>
> and that's it.  Is there another place to view the
> "Failed" boot errors?  And, how do I correct these two
> "error"s above?
>
> TIA.
>
> Hardy Merrill
>

vesafb is the Framebuffer, used for the fancy boot spash screens, etc.
Maybe you dont have support for this compiled into your kernel? Usually it
is loaded by adding parameters to the kernel line in your boot manager
(grub/lilo). You could disable it there if you dont want/use it.

apm is Advanced Power Management, which seems to be disabled in your BIOS.
You can disable the service also if you dont use it.

Both of these look like dmesg notifications, and neither is critical. Your
kernel likes to probe everything when it initializes, and it is just
reporting what it is doing.