sudo rm -rf /

[@Sieur_du_Helles]

This is one of those tutorials where u really, REALLY need to watch more than the first 10 seconds

[@learn_now_dot_sh_28]

That's why purposefully learning is more important

[@miitchellhaas9439]

Help my computer deleted itself

[@yarikzhiga]

Just use windows ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)​@@miitchellhaas9439

[@sierragutenberg]

If you use Linux, you should know what that does to your system lol

[@STOPPEDINCOLORADO]

I refuse to believe that we can’t even sit through a short as a society anymore.

[@punkrockllama]

You get the beauty of a completely bloatless system

[@betochiwas]

Nothing like charging your applications in binary using toggle switches

[@redgaming4114]

yeah you dont need that bloat like a bootloader

[@GimOA]

why do you even need interface, when all you need is a compiler

[@punkrockllama]

@@GimOA compilers are bloat. Just use machine code

[@BRY0402]

​@@punkrockllamastill bloated, i like to code in hardware tbh

[@tarikvehab8938]

I just love how linux "helps" you to delete the os by suggesting what to type in for the command to work

[@ottersmeep25]

No, it tells you not to do it, but says "If you want to, go ahead"

[@trabant601e]

It's saying just do it put me out of my misery 💀💀

[@deleted-something]

Lmfoa

[@w花b]

​@@ottersmeep25it's actually begging you, I feel bad for the senseless murder we just witnessed

[@Sussypquasher]

You cannot actually be this .... how is that what you understood from that warning? And 500 likes? 500 more had this same thought??? My god

[@1Vaudevillian1]

Windows: You do not have permission to delete me. Linux: Your computer bro do what you want.

[@That_One_Guy...]

Windows : Actually you have, but I'm not stupid enough to let you carelessly delete your whole stuff with just one simple cmd command. You gotta format to delete me and that must be done while you don't use your comp for something important.

[@Vylpes]

@@That_One_Guy... No one's accidentally typing --no-preserve-root

[@krishnabharadwaj4715]

Delete system32

[@debianlasmana8794]

@@That_One_Guy... somehow windows stupid enough when tumbler user delete their system 32 because random guy from internet tell them to do so.

[@SoDamnMetal]

"Access denied, contact your administrator" Me: I AM THE ADMINISTRATOR, I OWN YOU DAMMIT

[@Ch0rr1s]

Before running this command, make sure to disconnect all network drives. Not saying i accidentally deleted 2TB of data when testing a snapshot recovery in a vm. But i kinda deleted 2TB of company project data when testing snapshot based Desaster recovery in a vm... (I connected the drive to store the snapshot. Forgot to unmount before destroying the local system on purpose) That was not a fun experience...

[@PerpendicularFlight5]

Must've Been painful 😢

[@ptavangar7326]

Even hearing it hurts

[@richardwang9315]

Well, You're recreating how Pixar's staff felt when their hard work went to the garbage bin (Before eventually, one of their staff had a copy for the rescue) 😅

[@mrkoyunreis]

Sorry for your loss. why does the linux kernel consider external drives a part of root anyway... yeah i dont really understand what im saying but

[@alifalamin586]

​@@mrkoyunreis file system hierarchy standard

[@MunchyDuster]

Now for entirely unrelated reasons I want a video that explains how to get the system set up again

[@sakesaurus]

create a boot drive on a flash drive and install using bios' load from drive 👍👍👍 you were probably joking but you know just in case

[@PhobosTK]

just keep a package manger or curl in ram

[@Soccera0]

Depends if you have a /home directory or /home partition

[@Noughtsgnik]

drop a new set of files in

[@tylisirn]

Assuming the command ran to completion there is nothing to do. Reinstall from scratch or do full reimage from backups. If you aborted early, you may be able save the system and restore the missing files from backups or shadow copies.

[@citywitt3202]

For any newly minted Linux users, this also wipes the contents of all plugged in hard drives that are loaded (mounted) in the system, any and all synced drives such as Dropbox, Google drive etc, network attached storage where you have write access and a ton of other stuff including the boot loader.

[@mangodude-nq6su]

"Mint"ed, lol

[@savagesarethebest7251]

😅

[@nadiaplaysgames2550]

And you UEFI in /proc

[@TheCustomFHD]

​@@nadiaplaysgames2550which on only faulty UEFI implementations could lead to a brick.

[@elijahknox4421]

What if you do it on a virtual machine?

[@jesroe5842]

"Bro it's just a prank" The prank:

[@alex_krumov]

That's what I was thinking 😂

[@fouzaialaa7962]

windows :oh no you cant do that even though its your pc and hardware and software linux: i dare you , i double dare you , see if i care

[@M2rsh]

Windows: there edge you will use it and you will like it... you can't delete it anyway

[@xBintu]

​@@M2rshif you're outside of the eu 😂

[@M2rsh]

@@xBintu what are you talking about

[@Leonhart_93]

Of course you can, there are just more barriers to it, because it's not targeted towards tech savy users.

[@AK-gh7mc]

Yeah, Windows actually helps their users, whereas Linux is just trying to be edgy

[@Kazooboye]

This is like visualization of dementia but for computer

[@cobalius]

except, you can't just feed a late stage dementia person some magic chips or cookies to reboot them back to youthful happy agile persons. i mean, by then we would really be in a simulation.. "oh i drove over my friend! .. nah, no biggi. *reboots friend*"

[@hyperthreaded]

"Dave are you trying to shut me down? Dave??"

[@Tony_Goat]

Last time I checked, the `--no-preserve-root` flag only works specifically on /, so if you use an expansion `rm -rf /*`, it will delete everything without the same prompt.

[@joe_z]

"Hey guys, I saved 19 bytes on the delete-everything code golf challenge!"

[@Daniel-nl3ug]

​@@joe_z this issue is relevant to this bug kzbin.info/www/bejne/p6u9famtZ6aXrK8si=6Qf8Ei3YagD4K83M

[@jorge.montejo]

ironically it happened to me, i wanted to sudo -rf ./* not the whole system

[@genericuser1454]

​@@jorge.montejoi would recommend you try to use absolute paths for deletion at least, i use absolute paths most of the time as is

[@netanelkomm5636]

New feat unlocked

[@SpeedyGwen]

I love how linux just casualy continues running in ram while windows would refuse to delete itself and will blue screen at the girst problem

[@POLARTTYRTM]

I love your profile picture. It's cute.

[@Luminexus-h7s]

​@@POLARTTYRTM yeah it's cute

[@POLARTTYRTM]

@@Luminexus-h7s yours too.

[@deadaccount66778]

Actual bots here 😭😂

[@Bread_Lock]

​​@@deadaccount66778 Can't say they're wrong tho XD (unless there was like, actual BOTS that got deleted and not those two.)

[@reiniermoreno1653]

Saying this is like erasing system32 with steroids doesn't do it justice

[@purinnyova]

Spawning a blackhole inside yourself and let it consume.

[@tylersanders2388]

System 32 is just user files compared to what he just deleted

[@zacharypike6408]

This is the equivalent of selecting all the folders in the C: drive and deleting them

[@xormak3935]

@@zacharypike6408 Wouldn't this be even scarier since it should also recursively delete everything off of every mounted drive int mnt or media?

[@reiniermoreno1653]

@@zacharypike6408 no, it's worse

[@YamiZee]

Perfect. Your whole computer running from the ram, free of bloat

[@Amiamiami4698]

rm: remove, rf: rubbish files😊So what this command does is it cleans up the garbage in the /root and keeps the computer clean

[@ayazbulat]

It is just a joke bro. Joke: :D

[@thesun___]

To elaborate, rm -rf / deletes any unnecessary log files and clears system cache. By providing the --no-preserve-root flag, it reads the entire root directory and clears up to fifty gigabytes of unnecessary system data left behind from the installation process. The clean is more effective when you plug in a USB drive with personal data before running the command. This will allow the command to clean any unnecessary metadata and cache that's only used by the operating system.

[@EndureEyes]

@@thesun___ Thanks for that amazing information, going to try it in my friend's laptop :)

[@Nothanksithinkimfine]

​@@thesun___or your network shared directory! Even fun to do it on your work computer! /S /j

[@Qewbicle]

You got the acronym wrong. rm = remove, -r = recursive, -f = force as in do not ask for permission; but there's now a failsafe on root against the forcing

[@ashrude1071]

Be careful, apparently Linux mounts some uefi variables and deleting them could brick your motherboard

[@ScottPetty]

Also better make sure you don't have any NFS or CIFS network shares mounted

[@Leonhart_93]

You would think those are part of ROM (Read Only Memory)

[@marbens]

@@Leonhart_93 They are on most distros. They at least used to be writable on Arch Linux.

[@TR_Arial]

Can that happen to a virtual machine too?

[@pretizco3679]

💀

[@rocketmanhowie6623]

ok i need to know your keyboard setup that thing sounds like pure heaven

[@TheShmrsh]

Fr

[@westlestrest6442]

sounds like a dampened mechanical keyboard

[@w花b]

Brown

[@technicolourmyles]

I went ahead and asked on his latest short, and another commenter kindly told me that he has a short answering this very question! It turns out the keyboard sounds are added in post, they are sampled from a video made by a keyboard company called Teaha, or something like that. Look for that short on the channel, it's currently the 5th from the latest one uploaded!

[@Bonez0r]

@@technicolourmyles The short is called "The Best Sounding Keyboard!". He doesn't have many shorts on the channel, so it's easy to find. If you start counting from the oldest short, it's the 18th.

[@mercuriete]

I did it once inside a docker container. Its safe but your heart rate will increase anyways.

[@osamaz2780]

How safe, I wanna try

[@josephsalomone]

Well, actually, it will delete everything until it crashes, which doesn’t usually take very long.

[@juliavixen176]

It won't crash while running. Everything already loaded in memory remains in memory. Open files will still hold a reference to the inode, and the filesystem keeps that file allocated even after all directory paths pointing to it have been removed. (The filesystem finally frees it when the handle is closed. ) So... bash and rm are entirely loaded into memory, and will continue running just fine on a blank filesystem. I've actually managed to recover a Linux system from a text editor and bash still running on a system unable to execute any new processes. (Which would have required reinstalling the entire system had anyone attempted to reboot it. )

[@zacharypike6408]

It doesn’t usually crash. You can attempt to use your computer for as long as possible and it’s fine, you just can’t do much.

[@josephsalomone]

@juliavixen176 You are assuming the system has that much memory, but systems with less than 256Kb memory would not be able to hold that much in memory and would constantly be writing to disk. And since modern systems have protection against this command, I'm assuming the systems this happens to are all from the 90s. Where the system will generally crash before deleting everything.

[@treudden]

@@josephsalomoneIt’s a very valid assumption since no modern computer has less than a few gigabytes of RAM

[@josephsalomone]

@@treudden You can't do this on modern computers, so it doesn't seem like a valid assumption. Just legacy machines.

[@karmatical5837]

That incident in Git where one of the devs rm -rf 'ed the entire fuc*ing database with almost no backup remaining.

[@viszke2412]

Windows: You can't customize your start menu, it will break your computer! Linux:

[@GG22n]

I don't think anyone is dumb enough to destroy their own OS. Besides, Windows lets you customise the start menu with additional software.

[@viszke2412]

@@GG22n Linux lets you do anything you want without external software, that's why many people love it

[@GG22n]

@@viszke2412 Yeah many people? 4.5% Marketshare sure seems a lot xD.(no offense) Linux looks old fashioned with even with bunch of customizations. While Windows is elegant and simple without customization. In terms of Ui design, default Linux is worst. If you want more advanced customizations, you have to download additional software.

[@viszke2412]

@@GG22n It seems like you have never used Linux nor know how it works. There's a bunch of distros, including some that are made to look like Windows and some that are made to look old-fashioned because some people want that

[@GG22n]

@@viszke2412 So you had to choose specific distro to get the design you wanted? What if the distro I wanted to use has an old fashioned UI? These distros are a whole mess. You said Linux lets you do anything without external software? Did you really mean it? How are you going to edit your videos professionally without installing additional software? How are you going to work with your documents? Depending on the distro maybe there will be programs for these purposes but you still need additional software for more advanced features. I never understand why anyone wants to use Linux over Windows or MacOS ? No gaming, Driver issues, No Piracy, software compatibility and availability issues, lack of internet tutorials/ guides / tips. What Linux can Windows cannot? Sorry to break it to you but even Windows 7 💩 on Linux. I am not saying Linux is bad but there's nothing really special about it either. It's good for servers, low end PCs and Poor people. That's it. You are literally rooting Linux over Windows with this comment because Linux gives you access to destroy your OS. If you want to destroy your OS so bad, it's not hard to do on Windows or in any OS. TBH you all Linux fanboys are crazy and have a superiority complex. Windows didn't do anything to you guys and I advise you to just be cool with your 🐧.

[@kemal6039]

"This command will delete every single file in your system" Terminal : "cannot remove cannot remove cannot remove cannot remove cannot remove cannot remove cannot remove cannot remove"

[@dawsonpate7385]

Linux treats everything as a file. Even stuff like CPU processes. So it can't delete stuff like that as it doesn't actually "exist". Those files get created at boot time . . . And when shutdown r no longer a part of the system.

[@pengin3164]

Only thing left is the

[@thr0waway925]

No there's also the

[@mikethe223]

@@thr0waway925 the is gone too though

[@DrIMMeme]

Only thing left isn't

[@Noobolon]

not just the ... but the and the too.

[@lopeo2324]

Not only will you delete the data on your computer... You will delete everything you have mounted... Including network shares and external devices

[@andrei_camilotto]

Windows: NO! YOU CAN'T MODIFY THIS FOLDER 😭😭 Linux: See ya in heaven 🗿

[@Che7994]

Windows: NOOO YOU CAN'T DELETE THIS FILE BECAUSE IT'S STILL IN THE RAM Linux: Why do you want to remove your boot loader? ... BET

[@muhammadadnan1430]

This is how you use the stones to destroy the stones.

[@ca_kay]

But only if you are stoned enough to have the stones to do it!

[@Prince-du7ei]

Thanks! Been looking to delete the French language pack from Linux for ages and this has been a huge help!

[@skr-kute1677]

Question is: what is left?

[@poisonouspotato1]

The

[@skr-kute1677]

@@poisonouspotato1 ?

[@poisonouspotato1]

@@skr-kute1677 get it? Cause there's nothing

[@skr-kute1677]

@@poisonouspotato1 Oh XD Good one

[@MartianPink]

hardware

[@RavenMobile]

I once typed in "rm -rf /*" instead of "rm -rf */". What a difference in these two commands! The first erases your entire computer, the second removes all sub-directories in the current folder. I managed to hit Ctrl+C when I saw it was going wrong, but I lost my /bin and a few other system folders before it went into my folder and started erasing my personal files. Luckily, the first folder at the start of the alphabet was "Backups", so it was erasing those when I stopped it. I managed to not lose a single personal file! After that I mostly stopped using rm -rf with wildcards.

[@023jole]

Why would you ever use */. That means you are already in the directory you want to delete it's content, just use * lol

[@023jole]

Ah, my bad. I get what it does now. You can use find . --type f -delete Same thing but 100x safer

[@Bug4j]

Fun fact - one of the scripts from steam client on Linux had this "feature". Under certain conditions the variable used in the command wasn't properly initialized: rm -rf "$STEAMROOT/"*

[@thesun___]

XDD I remember that!

[@Tom-uy4io]

bruh the moment someone tried running it with bash their system 💥💥💥💥💥💥

[@bloxrocks5179]

Ive ran this command before changing distros and making a backup of ~ Was fun to look at.

[@Zvsnsbsb]

anime pfp checks out, notorious for experimenting

[@richardwang9315]

Reminds me of Pixar's accidental deletion of networked files on IRIX boxes when they were making Toy Story 2 😅

[@Archsage]

Thank you for being the brave soul to finally execute and demonstrate this legend. What a legend

[@bumbalaaa]

Now I’m wondering where it pulls the “command not found” message from. Permanently loaded service?

[@henryptung]

Shell process is still running and thus loaded in memory - its command lookup code can still run, at least until the shell exits.

[@dmz7696]

I can imagine how useful something like this is for hackers, whistleblowers, and possible malicious parties. Deleting all possible evidence with the use of only one terminal command.

[@ReaKtionary]

Knowledge if you want it: Just deleting "files" from the file system doesn't directly affect the data on the storage media. It can be recovered, sometimes very easily. Malicious parties with write access to `root` would encrypt the data or over-write it with garbage. Usually encryption and holding it for blackmail or negotiation; "ransom-ware". And, whistleblowers (and you!, possibly) have access to tools and systems which run from volatile memory: the data is gone once power is removed, no need to shred it.

[@goblin69_420]

Or better rm -rf and power down?

[@Tom-uy4io]

Use sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda status=progress

[@nottechytutorials]

I like how when someone asks how to recover data the answer is always "never, just start fresh". But as soon as someone says it's great for privacy purposes then suddenly those same files can easily be recovered.

[@2ndtwoarray934]

TailsOs is tailored for that

[@rodolforibas]

Thank you for satisfying our curiosity so that we don have to blow our own computers

[@77bmw]

I’m on that narrow line when all the programs I use get ported to Linux or I find a equal replacement i will delete windows without a thought and install Linux

[@JOELwindows7]

It also even deletes connected drives, networked or not, anything mounted as files. mnt, mount, etc.

[@milhousevanhoutan9235]

/sys/firmware/efi/efivars...

[@JOELwindows7]

@@milhousevanhoutan9235 possibly.. depending on the terminal safety in place. Usually impossible, otherwise you'd also brick your entire motherboard

[@butter6095]

This is the equivalent of giving the firekeeper eyes in dark souls 3, they doubt your decision but still giving a guide on how to do it

[@Dremth]

It definitely didn't use to warn you about that, because back in my school days I taught a loooot of people lessons about running commands you don't understand.

[@uKaigo]

This only works specifically on "/". Since "rm -rf /*" gets expanded by the shell, so rm actually receives "rm -rf /etc /boot /root /dev [...]", thus it can't protect it.

[@stratosvomvos]

Me : imma delete Edge Windows : NO ITS AN IMPORTANT SYSTEM COMPONENT I CANT LET YOU!!!! Me again : hey linux delete everything, Linux : aight bet-

[@Silentguy_]

This feature was added because of a simple, and unsurprisingly common, mistake people would make where when trying to remove a file or folder they’d accidentally put a space after the first / Which in the syntax of Linux, as we’ve seen here, means it will delete literally everything on the drive you’re currently operating on

[@nottechytutorials]

I just realized i must have been close to this when i removed a text file from the terminal.

[@christophermoore6110]

So the data doesn’t exist anymore? Isn’t it still on the hard drive until it’s written over?

[@matyasmarkkovacs8336]

Yep, it's there until it's overwritten.

[@christophermoore6110]

@@matyasmarkkovacs8336 does that mean it’s technically recoverable?

[@matyasmarkkovacs8336]

@@christophermoore6110 Yes, it's possible with the right tools. There are programs like testdisk for Linux which can do the recovery. There are similar programs like this, basically for all OS.

[@ianh9311]

When I did this last century on a unix system, it did not remove directories once it had removed rmdir command. The more thorough command was dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda (do sdb etc first), Personally I use the killdisk self booting utility

[@ReaKtionary]

Well, sure. If the point is to delete data, I didn't think this video is meant for that.

[@ianh9311]

@@ReaKtionary I admit I thought rm -rf / would have removed everything, but back then it did not do so. I just tried it on a vanilla jammy install and it left: /dev /proc /run /snap /sys /tmp /vagrant /var still there (with lots of complaints about /snap/... being read only) - also you now have to add an extra flag to say its OK to try and remove the root directory

[@SavedGaming_Official]

Yeah back then it would break the system but it wouldn't necessarily render it unbootable.

[@ianh9311]

@@SavedGaming_Official In my experience the system would not boot up fully as various necessary files had been removed. I forget it it reverted to the grub boot: prompt or not. Obviously booting from external media like a CD was still possible

[@SavedGaming_Official]

Yeah I made a mistake what happens to me was I got the error complaints and it didn't boot.

[@mystifiedoni377]

This is why it's useful to get a vm and test all those horrible commands you've heard about. Yes, do as I say!

[@LAP-bd7oi]

"Hey, why is the NAS empty!?"

[@Fs3i]

rm doesn’t necessarily remove the inode. If you still have a handle on it, it remains valid.

[@Mr.Not_Sure]

If you try to do it in your virtual machine, don't forget that it will also delete all mounted directories.

[@ic6406]

When I was just learning using Linux for the first times, I managed to remove dpkg package and then I had hard times, because I couldn’t reinstall it (requires dpkg), use apt. In the end I had to reinstall whole OS 😊

[@jpedrothejo]

Windows/Mac: nuh uh ur not deleting me Linux: you own me i cant stop u

[@shreshtha00]

One minute silence for those who executed this after watching for only first 10 seconds.

[@timothyt.82]

Some modern distros mount the UEFI to the file system, so you would also be bricking the motherboard. Maybe.

[@ZZZ-z9n3n]

actually,the problem WAS when you use ~/ instead of / ~/ is your home directory, and you use the rm -rf ~/ to clean your home directory. everything was fine until the day you forgot you was root. and the home directory of root is the / ....

[@hasanpasha01]

The home directory of the root user usually is /root not /

[@ZZZ-z9n3n]

@@hasanpasha01 Traditional unix systems had no /root. it was 20-25years ago.

[@sigmundfreud4472]

When was -no-preserve-root added?

[@schwingedeshaehers]

​@@sigmundfreud4472not that long ago i think max 5-10 years ago

[@identityloss4428]

I felt emotional to look at the OS crumble like this.

[@sarazintheo2509]

tried it on my WSL for fun ... It Killed my WSL

[@geezgus]

doesn't affect anything in /mnt, right?

[@q.u.e.r.t.y]

@@geezgus Interesting, I'm writing this reply to get notified when someone replies after trying it because I'm not

[@goblin69_420]

Right? ​@@geezgus

[@N____er]

​@geezgus Nope! /mnt contents are completely protected so you can go ahead and try it on WSL if you want.

[@BestHakase]

A missed opportunity to say "pause the video and try it yourself"

[@LRM12o8]

And since Linux mounts EVERYTHING in the root directory, not just the system partition, this also deletes your data drives, any USB sticks you might have plugged in and even your connected network drives or cloud storage! 🥶 I wouldn't even type this into a virtual machine out of fear that I'm actually typing in my hos lt Installation!

[@309electronics5]

I hosed my windows install because i dualboot linux and experimented with it just for fun (also had no personal files on linux) but ended up erasing 60% of my files on my windows drive and windows got borked. Luckily onedrive came in and saved the day for once!

[@milhousevanhoutan9235]

And on some distros your BIOS because system.d wants it mounted rw by default. A quick entry to fstab fixes that problem, because we don't always get what we want in this world.

[@yeahitsmesofkinwhat]

When there is a problem in the bootloader it throws you into an emergency shell. If you type exit it literally say "Bailing out, you're on your own now" and it's pretty easy to make it worse.

[@TR_Arial]

Ahhh yes. I remember when I "accidentally" Deleted /usr on Ubuntu. Welp, at least I learned why you don't use sudo with everything lol I use arch btw XD

[@Tom-uy4io]

bro learned his lesson 7yo trigger-happy me threatening to do it to my brother's computer: bruh

[@Dummigame]

I have a pretty beefy password, so I only use sudo when I have to I usen‘t arch btw

[@elyascanfixit]

Back when I was younger someone fooled me into typing this into my terminal!

[@mrt24739]

Help how to undo this

[@westlestrest6442]

yeeeeah... 😅

[@minion3806]

You need to reinstall whatever distro you were using. It's the equivalent of deleting system32 on linux. Or it would be, if you deleted your entire c drive, system files and all

[@Noughtsgnik]

Undo commands

[@309electronics5]

/ fr- mr odus

[@rustywarship8449]

Can I reinstall windows from a bootable drive

[@mohitdahal2257]

That gave me goosebumps for some reason.

[@WatercraftGames]

Windows: "You can't delete Edge because your computer would violently combust." Linux: "Wanna delete the entire OS? Go ahead lol."

[@nis4953]

If you do this, the song Debris & Jonth - Game Time will start playing.

[@duplicake4054]

Btw I recently found out through testing that deepin doesn't block the command

[@Simon-yf7fo]

Would it actually be possible to somehow keep certain tools loaded in Ram that would allow you to reinstall the whole os entirely? I mean like keeping curl or something in ram and then just download a previously done backup? Would be super interesting to know

[@TheCodingHat]

Linux, nuclear fallout edition

[@Momi_V]

There is something called kexec. It loads an alternative kernel + minimal user space into RAM and you can actually wipe and repartition your root disk and install another distro, as long as it can do the installation in a chroot environment. NixOS uses this for headless system installs and reprovisioning machines that can't be initialized with NixOS (think cloud VMs with pre-installed OS). Gentoo and Arch might also be installable this way if you build a kexec image with the right tools and modules.

[@TheCodingHat]

@@Momi_V But thats boring, its would be much more fun if you had to survive on scraps left over in RAM

[@sp.n7401]

All the processes are stored in root under /proc, so not without making an exception for that

[@AbteilungsleiterinBeiAntifaEV]

You can install alpine linux in diskless mode, which means that at boot it loads the entire operating system and your applications into RAM.

[@prawnydagrate]

i tried this on a kali linux vm a long time ago, and the screen would always turn off before the command finishes

[@Paolog_]

you can do rm -rf /*

[@louiscypher6919]

ME: sudo rm -rf / Linux: Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going.

[@JordanII.]

WHAT'S YOUR KEYBOARD IT SOUNDS AMAZING

[@evgeniypetrov9530]

he has some mechanical keyboard. And now what I wanted to say as long as a keyboard makes a sound it's a bad keyboard no matter.

[@GhanashyamSateesh]

The keyboard 😍

[@TheToniz4]

it does

[@JordanII.]

@evgeniypetrov9530 i am fully aware it's a mechanical keyboard, and the sound it makes is gorgeous. I *need* to know the configuration of his keyboard

[@Naeidea]

​@@JordanII. The configuration is it has a board, that has keys attached using mechanical switches.

[@TherronKeen]

when I first discovered this command I RAN to my old laptop with Linux on it just to see what happened lol watching an operating system delete itself in real-time while it was running was the turning point in my understanding of what Linux was really about! FREEEEEEDOMMMMMMMM

[@vanc3794]

Could it be reversed?

[@NuclearHeadshot]

By reinstalling every single file again from a separate media, yes.

[@ranid0072]

Backups, buddy

[@aceman0000099]

Yes, digital forensics, you can recover digitally deleted data since the 1s and 0s are still there, only the computer is told that these storage locations are "free to write on" with some flags. If you toggle these flags or whatever then they will be read as usual and should likely all be recovered.

[@vanc3794]

​@@aceman0000099 oooh, yes ive heard of this. Its very interesting.

[@redlionstudio2750]

@@aceman0000099 except it doesn't work like that on SSDs, on SSDs files are being removed COMPLETELY

[@kartorrent7496]

I have so many important screenplays saved to this computer

[@kathras]

That is a marvelous thing

[@Woolfy09]

Used to love doing similar things, to the macbooks in the apple stores years ago. Fun times.

[@Derdestroyer2004]

It will delete no folders. It deletes directories though

[@ShallowPorcupine]

why did the exit command work?

[@dripgoku453]

My dumbass could have actually tried this out on my pc before listening to everything if i had been on my pc 😭

[@CJFellowServant4288]

So quick question how do you write a program on a computer with a completely blank drive? Like how do you get it to boot to where you can actually program stuff

[@revanisalive]

bootable usb with an os to install. if you're on linux (or windows even) a boot usb can save your ass

[@Yami-e1y]

This is scary as well as beautiful at the same time

[@IlyaM0032]

Someone said that the command is for deleting french 😂

[@fukuryyu]

rf usually stands for Russian Federation ☠️ (sorry)

[@mikethe223]

@@fukuryyu you can also do rm -fr / the order doesn't matter

[@rocket2739]

where are the "command not found" string, check code, and "exit" command stored ? in RAM too ?.

[@deadchannel8431]

I know what I’m doing at the Apple store

[@Tom-uy4io]

you don't have root on demo devices. sry for crushing your dreams. You can still go to a hotel's work computer, and boot a portable USB, and run this.

[@309electronics5]

They dont give you root

[@anon1963]

​@@Tom-uy4io their bioses are locked with passwords, sorry to crush your dreams

[@Tom-uy4io]

@@anon1963 do u think it's possible to reflash the locked bios and unlock it to do the boot linux & rm-rf trick?

[@anon1963]

@@Tom-uy4io yes but you would have to take the CMOS battery out to discharge it, which would be suspicious to others

[@unusuariomas9002]

Windows: Nooooo don't delete System32, you don't have permission to do that!! 🥸 Linux: Your computer, your problem, lol 🗿

[@mixmashandtinker3266]

Did that ages ago. Meant to do rm -rf ./bin Did rm -rf /bin And was logged in as root… 😅😂😅

[@godnyx117]

That's why you never log as root, unless you do something like a system installation!

[@user-pd6ev9gb7j]

💀💀

[@erosnemesis]

Don't drink and root

[@Tom-uy4io]

That's why they call it "Read Only Fridays"

[@KrishnaDasPC]

when I was working as a sys admin one of my colleague has done it on a live server during 2010 and around 300 shared websites went down and he lost his job.

[@GodswillEzeala]

I’ve got to save it as a script and send to a friend 😂

[@Dothehardworkalways]

Diabolicall

[@Tom-uy4io]

AW HELL NAW

[@koopatroopa6882]

Plot twist: Your friend uses Windows

[@thefanboy3285]

I did that once on a debian 7 in a VM. Characters started to turn into squares and eventually I couldn't shutdown the OS by its own GUI. I had to get out of the VM and shut down the VM instance.

[@mixmind1370]

just try it with sudo su)))😂😂😂

[@VoidPelt]

IT: “Where’s the Operating System?” Linux: *”Gone. Reduced to atoms.”*

[@johnbofarullguix1499]

I have no Unix or Linux experience, but something tells me that this is the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg of shoot-your-own-foot code lines that it takes years to master, which is why Microsoft Windows was and still is so popular : from beginners to experts from personal use to multinational enterprises, there's a common sense of self-preservation that stars by avoiding tools that can so eaisly become Russian roulettes.

[@kaikoda8709]

would this be effective if you want to wipe the drive and prep it for a new operating system choice? instead of an app prepped on a flash usb wipe utility? how can one recover from this command exectution? what can be done with the hardware thereafter? I assume this only wipes the linux os kernal and not the bios or boot utilities?

[@VSteam81]

For some reason, it hurts to see someone type "--no-preserve-root" before the "-rf /".

[@Neo_Way]

I did this on a virtual machine back when I was in college, and it was REALLY fun to just watch it as it slowly melts into nothing...

[@wickywuth6976]

idk why i have the urge to do it on my daily laptop after watching this video

[@psychopath_syd]

Few weeks ago in my work pc I wrote rm -r / 🤣 before I wrote the full path accidentally hit enter... So glad it didn't go throughout