Because of the type of distribution I run, made up of several distros actually, I often have problems installing things that result in many hours of tedious experimentation to correct. Sometimes this is fun, but sometimes I just don't have the time. I am still pretty new at this, and was wondering if someone had some tips to make this sort of diagnostic proceedure easier.

By far the most common occult error I get when things fail is a seg-fault. I understand what this is, but the causes have turned out to be varied. Sometimes a missing library, sometimes a conflict... So, is there a command or proceedure that I can execute that will give me more info if the only error message my console gives me is something like: Segmentation Fault ; Fatal Error?

Any tips appriciated!

Strace and gdb are the first things come to mind.