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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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What're some of the dumbest things you've done to yourself in Linux? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

300 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm working on a some materials for a class wherein I'll be teaching some young, wide-eyed Windows nerds about Linux and we're including a section we're calling "foot guns". Basically it's ways you might shoot yourself in the foot while meddling with your newfound Linux powers.

I've got the usual forgetting the . in lines like this:

$ rm -rf ./bin

As well as a bunch of other fun stories like that one time I mounted my Linux home folder into my Windows machine, forgot I did that, then deleted a parent folder.

You know, the war stories.

Tell me yours. I wanna share your mistakes so that they can learn from them.

Fun (?) side note: somehow, my entire ${HOME}/projects folder has been deleted like... just now, and I have no idea how it happened. I may have a terrible new story to add if I figure it out.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Switched to what i thought was an old install usb; it had a close enough directory list to what i expected that i then went ahead and rm -rf * the whole thing.

Turns out that was my / directory. I only noticed because things stopped loading from the drive into memory. Everything still running actually still worked for the most part.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago

Yes. That’s what allows Unix legends like this: https://www.ee.torontomu.ca/~elf/hack/recovery.html

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Yeah, mine was pretty similar...

rm -rf / home/user/somedir

I think I realized what was happening somewhere in /etc, and stopped it maybe in /lib. But this was before /bin was a symlink, and I was jumping distros pretty constantly, so I just reinstalled. It was also before Ubuntu popularized sudo, IIRC, so I was probably su'd.