/var/log/messages nearly empty, missing INIT script messages

Hi,
I was a Suse user and have installed the Knoppix V3.4 to disk. I have various small problems, ALSA and lm-sensors. But what is really getting me is that I seem to have very little in my /var/log/messages, in fact apart from the "MARK" messages after boot I see very little apart from ISDN messages.

In Suse I could also see the results of the INIT scripts, up to now I haven't found them here. I tried googling but till now didn't find anything fitting.

For example I run alsaconfig -L, the log file in /tmp is not created and I have no new messages in any log files in /var/log/. The etc/syslog.conf file didn't show me anything obvious.

I guess this is pretty basic, but the lack of messages is hampering my progress somewhat.

Cheers Brian