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]@hexbear.netEnglish
        0·
        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]@hexbear.netEnglish
          0·
          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

          • crime [she/her, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
            1·
            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: `