Phase 1 · Free

1.5 Your Notes, and How to Write an Install Log

Every working IT person keeps notes. Not because they forget easily, but because the second time you hit a problem, you want the fix in thirty seconds, not three hours. In BNLC your notes are also your proof of work.

20 minPhase 1: Get a Machine RunningFree

Phase 1. Lesson 5 of 5. About 20 minutes.

Plain entry

Every working IT person keeps notes. Not because they forget easily, but because the second time you hit a problem, you want the fix in thirty seconds, not three hours. In BNLC your notes are also your proof of work. By the capstone, they become a portfolio a hiring manager can actually read.

This lesson sets up the folder you will use for the whole course and shows you what a useful log looks like.

Terms

  • Home directory: your personal folder, /home/yourname, shortened to ~.
  • MarkdownA lightweight way to format plain text with simple symbols, such as # for headings and * for lists, that converts cleanly into web pages and documents. Read more →: plain text with light formatting: # for headings, - for bullets, backticks for commands. Every file in this course is Markdown.
  • GitA distributed version control system that tracks changes to files over time, enabling collaboration, branching, and complete history of every modification. Read more →: a tool that tracks every change to your files. You start using it in Phase 3. See git.

Depth

Make the folder

In your Ubuntu terminalThe window or screen where you type text commands and read their output, connected to a shell that runs those commands. Read more →:

mkdir -p ~/course-notes/phase-1-install
cd ~/course-notes/phase-1-install
pwd

Expected output:

/home/yourname/course-notes/phase-1-install

Open the built-in text editor on a new file:

gnome-text-editor install-log.md &

(If that command is not found, use nano install-log.md. Phase 3 teaches nano properly.)

What a good log entry looks like

Bad:

Installed Ubuntu. Had a problem with the screen. Fixed it.

Good:

Problem: after first boot the VMA software-based emulation of a complete computer that runs its own operating system and applications, isolated from the host hardware. Read more → window was stuck at 800x600. Exact message: none, just small screen. Searched: “ubuntu 26.04 virtualbox screen resolution” Fix: sudo apt install virtualbox-guest-utils, reboot. Resizes now. Why it worked: the guest driver tells VirtualBox the window size.

The good one has the exact symptom, what you searched, the command, and why. If you do not know why yet, write “not sure why yet” and come back.

Collect facts from the machine

These commands fill the “what machine” section without guessing:

hostnamectl

Example output in a VirtualBox VM (trimmed; kernelThe core of an operating system that runs with full hardware control and decides how every program gets CPU time, memory, and device access. Read more → number and names are environment-specific):

 Static hostname: bnlc-ubuntu
       Icon name: computer-vm
         Chassis: vm
  Virtualization: oracle
Operating System: Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
          Kernel: Linux 7.0.0-14-generic
    Architecture: x86-64
 Hardware Vendor: innotek GmbH
  Hardware Model: VirtualBox

“innotek GmbH / VirtualBox” is how a VirtualBox guest identifies itself, and Virtualization: names the hypervisorSoftware that creates and manages virtual machines by abstracting physical hardware resources and allocating them to isolated guest operating systems. Read more →. Under QEMU/KVMA Linux kernel module that turns the Linux operating system itself into a Type 1 hypervisor, enabling hardware-accelerated virtual machines. Read more → the same command shows Virtualization: kvm, Hardware Vendor: QEMU. On bare metal you see the real maker and model.

Save a copy straight into your log:

hostnamectl >> install-log.md

>> adds to the end of the file. A single > would replace the whole file. Remember that one.

Why it works this way

You will forget the fix. Six months from now the same error comes back, and the only thing that saves you an hour is a note that says what you saw, what you guessed, what you tried, and what worked. That order matters: writing the symptom before the fix stops you from “fixing” something that was never the cause. Teams in IT run on this kind of note. A ticket with exact errors and commands gets solved; “it broke, I fixed it” does not.

Self-check

  1. What four things make a log entry useful?
  2. What is the difference between > and >>?
  3. How does hostnamectl tell you you are in a VirtualBox VM?

Answers: (1) Exact symptom or error, what you searched, the fix, and why it worked. (2) > overwrites, >> appends. (3) Virtualization: names a hypervisor and Hardware Model shows VirtualBox.

Sources