this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2024
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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I'm working on a some materials for a class wherein I'll be teaching some young, wide-eyed Windows nerds about Linux and we're including a section we're calling "foot guns". Basically it's ways you might shoot yourself in the foot while meddling with your newfound Linux powers.

I've got the usual forgetting the . in lines like this:

$ rm -rf ./bin

As well as a bunch of other fun stories like that one time I mounted my Linux home folder into my Windows machine, forgot I did that, then deleted a parent folder.

You know, the war stories.

Tell me yours. I wanna share your mistakes so that they can learn from them.

Fun (?) side note: somehow, my entire ${HOME}/projects folder has been deleted like... just now, and I have no idea how it happened. I may have a terrible new story to add if I figure it out.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

was too incompetent to install arch one time so i used archinstaller and created a separate home partition. couple years later that root partiton's close to filled up, and i do an update after deleting come programs to free up space. then some weird text appeaerrs in terminal, and so i try to update again (this time specifically wine), says loads of files already exist in filesystem. i think "this is weird", so i restart.

what instantly gets my attention is this text greeting me on boot

loading Linux linux... error: file '/vmlinuz-linux' not found. Loading initial ramdisk... error: you need to load the kernel first.

Press any key to continue.

yup, i just borked my install, so i hastily whipped out an outdated arch USB, updated it using a spare laptop and am now on a reinstall (luckily i keep the important files on a separate drive, so not all is lost). extra insult to injury was that my previous install had my drive LUKS encrypted, so i couldn't evne get in there to possibly backup anything if i tried lol. but it's feels refreshing starting anew though.