Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting

Start with the obvious: the live medium is slow on old USB sticks, and some firmware needs the boot menu opened explicitly (often F12, F10 or Esc at power-on).

The computer does not reach the desktop

• Check the download against its .sha256, then write the stick again.
• Try another USB port, preferably a rear USB 2 port on a desktop.
• Try both UEFI and legacy/BIOS boot entries.
• On a Mac, use the firmware boot picker and choose the USB entry.
• If the screen stays black but the computer is running, try another display cable or port, and check the Hardware compatibility page.

The screen is the wrong size or resolution

Open Control Panels ▸ Monitors. Resolution and pixel size are per screen. Zoom is disabled on rotated screens; that is a known limitation.

Wi-Fi or Ethernet does not work

Open Control Panels ▸ TCP/IP:

• choose Wi-Fi under Connect via, then the network;
• for a wired connection, plug in the cable and choose the wired interface;
• the Network module in The Collar shows whether you are connected.

Some Wi-Fi chips need firmware that Debian does not include. Check dmesg and the hardware page.

A printer does not print

Open Zac menu ▸ Printer Picker and choose the printer. If the queue says CUPS is not running:

sudo systemctl start cups

If a job is held, open its queue and click Resume. A held job usually names the reason, such as “Stopped (media needed)”.

Old Dog does not start

Old Dog needs your own Macintosh ROM and a system disk. It does not ship Apple software. Check that ~/Classic contains a compatible ROM and a disk image; see Classic Mac and Old Dog.

A program stops responding

Choose Zac menu ▸ Force Quit and the program. If the whole session is stuck, press Control-Option-Backspace to return to the login window. Unsaved work is lost.

Logs and reports

The session log is:

~/.local/state/zacos9/session.log

It can contain file and network names, so read it before posting it. Pedigree (Zac menu) describes the computer and has File ▸ Save Report.

Reporting a problem

Use the issue templates. Include:

• what you did and what happened;
• the ZacOS version from About This Computer;
• the computer, graphics, Wi-Fi and display;
• the relevant part of session.log;
• for language problems, the Language or translation problem template.