System messages are logged under /var/log/. To access this directory and all information stored there, log in as root. The most important messages are logged in messages. To view the most recent entries, enter tail -f /var/log/messages in the terminal window. To view messages relating to the boot process, apply this command to the file boot.msg.

To monitor the processes running on your system, enter top in a terminal window. If you need to access information located under /proc, use procinfo. xosview monitors the status of CPU usage, load average, memory usage, and more.

There are two possibilities. One is to use the KDE or GNOME search tool. Find them in the main menu. Alternatively, use the command find, described in man find(1).

Use the command pin (Package Information) to locate a file:

pin libfoo.so.2

The above command tries to find a package or filenames and paths. Use man pin(1) for more information.

If your computer no longer reacts to your mouse or keyboard, this does not necessarily mean that your entire system has crashed. Possibly one program is blocking the mouse or the keyboard, but all other programs are still running. If your machine can be accessed remotely (serial terminal, network), log in elsewhere, identify the crashed application by ps or top, and abort the respective program with killall program name. If this does not work, try killall -9 program name.

If this is not possible, try switching to another console using Ctrl-Alt-F2 to kill the faulty process from there. If the computer does not respond to any of the keys and network intervention is not possible, wait at least ten seconds before pressing reset to make sure that there is no hard disk activity.

To avoid possible damage to your file system, make sure that all data is safely written to disk before resetting the system. This can be done using the SysReq option of the Linux kernel. The kernel support for this feature must be enabled first. Open the file /etc/sysconfig/sysctl as root and set ENABLE_SYSRQ to yes. Use the key combination Alt-SysRQ-U to empty all data buffers safely by writing the data to disk and unmount the file system. SysRQ may also be labeled Print Screen on some keyboards. After the file system is unmounted, press the reset button to reboot your system.

You are probably trying to log in as root. For security reasons, this is not possible via telnet by default. With YaST, set up a normal user account. Log in with this username. Then change to the user root with su. It is much better and safer, however, to use the program ssh instead of telnet. The ssh program uses encrypted, secure connections.