for real though, modern linux distros will rarely require you to enter a command line, and if you do, a quick internet search can usually help you find out what you need to enter

  • crime [she/her, any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    rm is the unix command for remove — it deletes files and directories.

    The -r flag, or --recursive recursively traverses all the directories in the path file that you specify (so like if you have a directory stuff/ which has files a.txt, b.pdf, and subdirectory c/ then rm -r stuff/ would remove both files as well as c/ and its contents.

    The -f flag, or --force, does what it says on the tin: it deletes everything without prompting you or warning you about what it's going to delete.

    So it's possible to delete all the files on your system — including ones that the operating system needs to run — with rm -rf /. It's very hard to do on accident these days — usually you need superuser permissions (the sudo in sudo rm -rf /) which requires you to enter your administrator password and to also pass the flag --no-preserve-root which was created to keep people from deleting their whole system because someone named pigpoopballs69 on a random forum said to run sudo rm -rf /

    • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      The -r flag, or --recursive recursively traverses all the directories in the path file that you specify (so like if you have a directory stuff/ which has files a.txt, b.pdf, and subdirectory c/ then rm -r stuff/ would remove both files as well as c/ and its contents.

      So what would happen if you just did "rm stuff/" without the recursive flag? Shouldn't it work the same way and delete all of stuff/ contents?

      also how do you do that code font thingy

      • wantonviolins [they/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        It’s been a while since I’ve used rm non-recursively, but it should delete all of the files in the stuff directory but preserve any subdirectories and their contents

        And formatting for code is `___`

      • crime [she/her, any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        rm stuff/ without the recursive flag fails with an error (rm: cannot remove 'stuff': Is a directory) and doesn't remove anything. I'd guess the decision there was to have the least-destructive end result for ambiguous behavior, but I'm not entirely sure what the history is there, pretty sure that command is older than I am :)

        The code font thingy is the back tick character: `

      • crime [she/her, any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Oh yeah totally. I'm biased by my experiences, but I think there's much more of a risk with Windows, you have to go pretty far out of your way to actually nuke your whole system with rm, it's very hard to do on accident. Now, dd on the other hand...