Boot Messages

[stan]

In addition to what Mike wrote, I'll add some comments.

On Sun, 12 Dec 2010 09:54:23 +1300 (NZDT)
"Fred Zinsli" <fred.zinsli at shooter.co.nz> wrote:

> I haven't added any new hardware, unless you count the fact that I did
> connect my new phone to charge it. and I connected my USB bluetooth
> dongle to transfer data to it. I removed the dongle after the file
> transfer.

Phone is hardware, prime candidate, try with it removed.  Anything
removed at boot won't matter.

> How do I find/locate what the hardware is that is causing the problem?

Detective work.  Two commands that help are lsusb and lspci.  Also,
look in /var/log/messages.  All the boot messages are stored there and
these sometimes indicate what is causing the problem.  Search the web
for something like linux troubleshooting or boot error messages and
read the collective wisdom. :-)

> How do I submit a bug report, and how do I know what that report
> should be in reference to (what am I reporting)?

To submit a bug report you go to https://bugzilla.redhat.com/ , create
a login, and then step through to the Fedora portion of the site.
Select your component and Fedora version from the list and then drop
down to the questions (starting with Subject:.  Fill in the blanks and
attach any files (like the error messages in your original post).  You
might get a response and you might not, but it is noted for the
maintainers.  

> 
> How can I change what FC13 boots to by default. IE. If I select any
> other open than the first (top) option at startup (F8) the system
> runs.

In the file /boot/grub/grub.conf or /boot/grub/menu.lst (a symbolic
link of grub.conf), you will find the following entries
default=0
timeout=10
#hiddenmenu

They determine which paragraph is the default, 0 is the first, 1 is the
second, etc.
timeout tells how long to wait before booting
and commenting the hiddenmenu means that the menu will show while the
timeout is in effect and you can select the paragraph you want using
the arrow keys.

See man grub for more info, but the actual grub docs are in info form,
so you can use the command  info grub  .  Unless you are an emacs user,
it is more convenient to use  pinfo grub because then the arrow keys
work (it works more like lynx if you are familiar with that).