Where does stdout from applications go to when started in gnome (F20)?

asked 2014-02-06 08:01:21 -0600

mlipp
51 ●2 ●3 ●9

updated 2014-02-09 02:33:25 -0600

FranciscoD_
10447 ●60 ●128 ●194 https://ankursinha.in

When I start an application in gnome (F20), I want to see what it has written to stdout/stderr if it behaves strangely. Of course, I can start it in a terminal. But then I'd have to know beforehand that the application will behave strangely later. (Or I start everything in a terminal by default which is not really an option.)

Searching for this in the web, I found some interesting answers, but obviously they are all outdated. Traditionally, output used to go to $HOME/.xsession-errors (actually, I knew about that one, but it isn't there any more). I also found some patch that seems to have replaced that with $XDG_HOME/.cache/gdm/session.log (doesn't exist either). In Ubuntu, the output currently seems to end up in $HOME/.cache/upstart/gnome-session.log (but F20 uses systemd). Of course, I checked the output of journalctl, nothing there. Any hint appreciated.

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gdm puts the logs in the system journal (c.f. this ), I tested by starting konqueror and went to "info:coreutils", the same kind of errors I used to see in ~/.xsession-errors were displayed in the systemd journal.

Ahmad Samir ( 2014-02-06 08:33:55 -0600 )edit

I cannot think why you don't have an .xsession-errors file, but I have. (Fedora 20). Only the stderr goes there (I guess from the name).

NickTux ( 2014-02-06 08:46:02 -0600 )edit

Note that starting an application in a terminal is not the same as starting it with Gnome menu (terminal is attached or not). If you want to mimic starting application with gnome - launch the desktop file with gtk-launch as described here: https://ask.fedoraproject.org/en/question/31805/ . I can also see that there are indeed some log files (per application) under find ~/.cache -name "*.log"

marcindulak ( 2014-02-06 13:00:24 -0600 )edit

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answered 2014-08-28 10:35:06 -0600

mwilck
36 ●1 ●1 ●5

As Ahmad already commented, the logs go to the systemd journal. In order to read them, first find out the systemd unit that belongs to your session (which is a systemd unit of type "scope"). Then use that session as unit for journalctl, like this:

$ systemctl list-units -t scope
UNIT                             LOAD   ACTIVE SUB     DESCRIPTION
session-5.scope                  loaded active running Session 5 of user martin
[...]
$ journalctl -b -u session-5.scope

You could create a shortcut for this in bash, like this:

alias xsession-errors='journalctl -b -u $(systemctl -t scope | awk "/user $USER\$/ { print \$1; }")'

With this alias, you can view your logs simply by typing xsession-errors.

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Where does stdout from applications go to when started in gnome (F20)?

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