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I have no idea what I'm doing, help! (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by tempestuousknave@sh.itjust.works to c/unix@sh.itjust.works
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Every other forum has rules about these posts because there's such a glut of them, and yes, I could go read a stickied thread elsewhere, but here I am not doing that.

How would someone with no computer skills get acquainted with the OS? What version would you recommend to the hopeless novice? Can I keep windows on my PC and run the new OS or a practice version of it in a partitioned space while I learn? Can someone with minimal skills/time/patience be happy with a unix-like OS?

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[-] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

This used to be pretty prevalent, I don't know how often this happens now, but anybody telling you to run the following command on the command line is a troll and to be avoided:

sudo rm -rf --no-preserve-root /

What that does is delete everything on your hard-drive, including the OS. To break it down:

sudo will prompt you for your password and run the command as a superuser (admin).

rm is the command to delete files.

-rf tells it to do it recursively (include folders and target every folder in those folders, etc) and to force through, as in not prompt the user for anything it can't delete, just delete everything it can.

--no-preserve-root disables protection that was added to stop shenanigans like this.

/ is the target: the root of the file system, vaguely equivalent to "C:" on a Windows machine.

[-] tempestuousknave@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 years ago

Thanks for the heads up and the breakdown. I'd like to think I'm clever enough to avoid inputting what is a obviously nefarious command, but I don't think I've fully plumbed the depths of my foolishness.

this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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unix like operating system lovers

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