this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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Programmer Humor

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[–] deaf_fish@lemm.ee 116 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Don't run this command unless you want to delete all the files on your system and break Linux on your system.

[–] dept@lemmy.sdf.org 183 points 1 year ago (6 children)

is linux that dependant on French? wow

[–] Ozzy@lemmy.ml 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Did you know? Linus Torvolds is actually the consort child of two french people! That's why you have to use the french flag when removing folders, it's an ode to his upbringing

[–] Morphit@feddit.uk 6 points 1 year ago

Stallman is fuming rn

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[–] senkora@lemmy.zip 37 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So what you’re saying is, it is true that I will no longer have French installed.

[–] MetalJewSolid@sopuli.xyz 17 points 1 year ago

A risk worth taking

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[–] Meowoem@sh.itjust.works 112 points 1 year ago (14 children)

I get these are jokes but I really don't find anything funny about it, it becomes a meme and then people start getting more creative and pushing it more and being more covert and people come up with other little japes then new Linux users get their shit destroyed and maybe important info gets lost or precious memories so they say Linux is a piece of shit and go back to windows.

It's not even funny to start with so when it inevitably inspires people to be assholes and bullies that's all we've achieved.

[–] littlecolt@lemm.ee 35 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's the new "delete system32 to get better performance"

[–] Album@lemmy.ca 18 points 1 year ago

Lol rm -rf as a joke isn't new anyway

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[–] newline@feddit.nl 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I totally agree. We should be more open and welcoming to new users. Imagine some new people on the steam deck being curious and diving into Linux and running into this. Undoubtedly, we'd lose at least a few users that brick their machines.

I get that this humor fits and entertains the technically inclined of us, but if we truly want more widespread use of Linux, shouldn't we open our arms to less technical users as well? Besides, even for the more technical of us, this joke is so old and run down 🙃

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[–] Phoenix@programming.dev 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

Yes, but also I would hope that if you have the autonomy to install linux you also have the autonomy to look up an unknown command before running it with superuser privileges.

[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 year ago

That's making an assumption that a brand new Linux user knows they are running the command with superuser privileges.

Half the time you websearch a problem you are having in Linux you will find someone telling you to fix it by running a command that starts with sudo without explaining what any part of the command does. New people probably regularly run those commands without finding out what it does and it probably works (or at least does no harm) a good portion of the time because most people aren't dicks. So then you've got new people trusting that form of advice.

It's hard to blame them, they are new to the system and very few experienced users are going out of their way to explain the basics to new users.

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[–] nefarious@kbin.social 80 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Careful, you have to also add --no-preserve-root to make sure you get all of it out. If you leave the roots, it'll just grow back later!

(But seriously, don't actually do this unless you're prepared to lose data and potentially even brick your computer. Don't even try it on a VM or a computer you're planning to wipe anyway, because if something is mounted that you don't expect, you'll wipe that too. On older Linux kernels, EFI variables were mounted as writable, so running rm -rf / could actually brick your computer. This shouldn't still be the case, but I wouldn't test it, myself.)

[–] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Fun fact, rm -rf /* does not need --no-preserve-root. It will happily start as technically, according to the preserve root check, /* is not root as the target is not /

[–] koper@feddit.nl 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's slightly different. Your shell will see the /* and replace it with all the directories under /, e.g. /bin /dev /etc /home etc. So the actual command that runs is rm -rf /bin /dev /etc /home etc.

Careful, you have to also add --no-preserve-root to make sure you get all of it out. If you leave the roots, it’ll just grow back later!

Oh my god I effin guffawed, thanks for that

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[–] kaschu@programming.dev 68 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I have checked this and can confirm that after entering this command, there is no more French in the system. 👍

[–] philm@programming.dev 17 points 1 year ago

(Nor anything else...)

[–] speaker_hat@lemmy.one 13 points 1 year ago

Awesome thanks, I just also run it now waiting for it to fin

[–] ryannathans@lemmy.world 53 points 1 year ago (4 children)
  1. Don't run any command you don't understand
[–] upturned8393@lemmy.ml 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's why you run this one though because you don't understand French. After you run this you'll understand every command afterwards.

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[–] jetsetdorito@lemm.ee 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

blindly copy and pastes top stack overflow answer

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What about downloading a shell script and piping it directly into a shell?

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[–] vsis@feddit.cl 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Pro tip: Run :(){ :|:& };: to activate the developer mode on Linux.

[–] BlueMagma@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I have no idea what this does, I will not try it to find out

[–] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 year ago (4 children)
[–] VinnieFarsheds@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'll just use a spoon then for dinner

[–] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 year ago
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[–] tungah@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Is sudo even necessary? I bet the command would execute without any resistance.

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[–] hexagonwin@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

For security, disabling the root account is important, so be sure to add --no-preserve-root on the end!

[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

rm -rf * stands for read mail really fast, and the * addresses all mails.

[–] Untitled_Pribor@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago

Remember to cd / before you use the command to address all of the emails

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[–] IBNobody@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Remember the old days in AOL Chat when we'd randomly tell people to hit Alt-F4?

[–] Jtskywalker@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago

I got a friend with that in Destiny 2 just a couple years ago. I guess when you've been playing for hours and you ask how to take a screenshot, you don't put 2 and 2 together quick enough

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

Press f10 in source games. Classic.

[–] Haus@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago

Damit, lolled at a restaurant like a maniac.

[–] blastofffox@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

Let's be involved in more such discussions so if OpenAI starts scrapping lemmy then future versions of ChatGPTs can fuck people over.

[–] AKADAP@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The evil thing about this is that it will be at minimum hours, possibly days, before someone who did this can come back to complain.

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[–] seliaste@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 1 year ago

rm -fr -nocap -slay

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