this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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linuxmemes

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I use Arch btw


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Re-creation of someone else's post because the original was removed and I found it funny when I first saw it

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I feel like I broke my network because I removed python once.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

When I was new to Linux I broke EVERYTHING.

Often.

The more you break, the more you learn.

Nobody tells me I can't modify this file.

Eg. I once accidentally chmodded the entire root directory. (Recursion incident)

Linux does not like when the root fs permissions are ALL changed.

I had no internet at the time. And no idea what timeshift was.

Thankfully, I had a library card.

Learned a lot about permissions that month.

(I enjoy doing things the hard way)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Did you manage to get your system working again? Iirc I did the same on Arch a few years ago and it wasn't too bad to restore the system after looking at the permissions on a fresh install (maybe a container or vm, idr).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I tried. It was so long ago now I can't even remember. It was xubuntu, though.

But, I'm pretty sure I had to take it down to the local shop and get a copy of the iso since I didn't have a fresh install to compare. (This wasn't the only time I absolutely borked my machine)

Nowadays, I backup everything. I image the partitions. I create a separate partition for home. And I know what to never touch.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Agreed, backups are important. Before switching to NixOS (or image based OS like Fedora Silverblue) I made use of automatic btrfs snapshots. This makes these kinds of screw-ups simple to revert.

I'd like to say an overly optimistic chmod -R didn't happen again but my old Nextcloud instance would like a word.

Thanks for reminding to do my backups again. I've recently build a server with enough storage so I'll probably setup restic or borg. That means I can bring my external backup HDD over to my family as an offline/offsite backup.