I accidentally untarred archive intended to be extracted in root directory, which among others included some files for /etc directory.
I went on to rm -rv ~/etc, but I quickly typed rm -rv /etc instead, and hit enter, while using a root account.
So good to see that, even in 2026, Unix Haters’ Handbook’s part on rm is still valid. See page 59 of the pdf
The handbook has numbered pages, so why use “page X of the pdf”? I don’t see the page count in my mobile browser - you made me do math.
(I think it’s page number 22 btw, for anyone else wondering)
I dont know if you use firefox on your phone, but i do, and i fucking hate it that i cant jump to a page or see the page number im on.
That is what I’m using. I don’t really read enough pdf:s to notice it normally, but I guess it’s another reason to get off my ass about switching browsers ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The biggest flaw with cars is when they crash. When I crash my car due to user error, because I made a small mistake, this proves that cars are dangerous. Some other vehicles like planes get around this by only allowing trusted users to do dangerous actions, why can’t cars be more like planes? /s
Always backup important data, always have the ability to restore your backups. If rm doesn’t get it, ransomware or a bad/old drive will.
A sysadmin deleting /bin is annoying, but it shouldn’t take them more than a few mins to get a fresh copy from a backup or a donor machine. Or to just be more careful instead.