On Fri, Dec 12, 2025 at 15:22:37 +0100, Nicolas George wrote: > Paul M. Foster (HE12025-12-12): > > Really? Well, I just asked search.brave.com this question: > > > > "are systemd system logs binary rather than plain text" > > > > And the answer was "Yes". > > Then by all means trust a LLM.
This isn't helpful. The *DEFAULT* logging under systemd is the binary journal which can only be read by systemd's command set. *BY DEFAULT* you have no human-readable log files, meaning you cannot read them with a comfortable and familiar command line interface, nor can you read them by mounting the (partially failed?) disk in a different system for post mortem analysis, and so on. To get human-readable log files in addition to the default journal, install the rsyslog package. To get human-readable log files *instead* of the default journal, Michel Verdier gave us a recipe at <https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2025/12/msg00122.html>.
