gnome-system-log

gnome-system-log [FILE...]

--help
    Display help and exit

--version
    Output version information and exit

The gnome-system-log command launches a graphical utility for viewing and analyzing system log files in the GNOME desktop environment. It provides an intuitive interface to browse logs such as /var/log/syslog, /var/log/messages, /var/log/kern.log, and others typically found in /var/log. Users can select specific log files from a list, search for text, filter by log level (e.g., error, warning, info), and navigate chronologically.

This tool is particularly useful for non-technical users needing a visual way to inspect system events, errors, or authentication logs without command-line tools. It supports real-time tailing of logs and color-coding for priorities. However, it relies on traditional syslog files and lacks support for modern systemd's journald binary logs.

Installation is via the gnome-system-tools or gnome-utils package on Debian-based systems (e.g., apt install gnome-system-tools). It's lightweight but deprecated in favor of journalctl(1) and gnome-logs.

Deprecated in GNOME 3+; ignores systemd journal. Use journalctl(1) for modern logs. May not be installed by default.

Opens with predefined logs: /var/log/syslog, /var/log/messages, /var/log/auth.log, /var/log/dmesg, /var/log/kern.log.

Search, filter by priority, tail mode, export to text. GTK2-based UI.

Introduced in GNOME 2.x as part of gnome-utils (later gnome-system-tools). Widely used pre-systemd, deprecated around 2012 (GNOME 3.4), removed from core repos by GNOME 40.

journalctl(1), tail(1), less(1), syslog-ng(8)