What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

cpoakes · 2017-03-11 07:16:52

Aren't "rm -rf *"; "chmod -R ... *"; and "dd of=/dev/wrong ..." rights of passage for unix/linux sysadmins? Haven't been there yet? Stick with it for 20 years.

Temetka · 2017-03-11 10:06:33

I've done some of the typical mistakes

rm -r on / <-- reload OS
dd'd the fresh empty drive to the drive I was attempting to clone
opened the .zip bomb on a linux machine stupidly thinking it wouldn't be affected. It was affected.
stupidly assigned root as owner of /home and no one else with any permissions. Alcohol may have been involved. This was easily corrected though.
Once wiped out my Windows partition by accident when installing ubuntu. Oops. Not so much of a problem now as this laptop only has linux on it.

That's about all I can recall right now. I'm sure I'm forgetting something and also pretty sure I'll make more mistakes in the future.

martix · 2017-03-11 10:08:02

ohnonot wrote:

as any sane hacker, i switched the machine off immediately, then asked a linuxy neighbour for some spare external storage, booted live and started recovering.
i think i got +90% back, but the file structure was lost.

What linux tool did you use? testdisk? scalpel? I have to say that once I managed to recover an accidentally deleted .odt file on a linux ext4 partition, but the tool I used did not keep the filename and I always failed to recover an accidentally deleted directory (even with extundelete). If it's about files on an ntfs partition, it's preferable to use windows programs (as far as i can tell, in your story it should've been possible to recover every file with their original name as the data was not overwritten and they were on an ntfs partition. "Deleting" actually does not do anything to the file itself physically on the hdd, it only removes the reference to it [well, sort of, in a nutshell]).

stevep · 2017-03-11 18:07:52

Any boneheaded moves any of us have made just pale in comparison to the Amazon employee whose simple typo brought down a goodly portion of the Internet last week: https://aws.amazon.com/message/41926/

Takeaway: though the Net was designed to be robust and route around damage, it's obvious that the loads we place upon it have made it increasingly brittle.

ohnonot · 2017-03-11 20:05:36

@martix: testdisk/photorec. remember it was an ntfs partition, and no windows rescue disk was handy

cpoakes wrote:

Aren't "rm -rf *"; "chmod -R ... *"; and "dd of=/dev/wrong ..." rights of passage for unix/linux sysadmins? Haven't been there yet? Stick with it for 20 years.

none of these have happened to me yet, but then again i haven't been at it even for a decade...

KrunchTime · 2017-03-20 22:57:53

I decided to try out Antergos on another partition. During the install process, there was a question about whether or not you had EFI. Dumb me, I really didn't understand what that meant and opted for that option. After the install completed and I rebooted, no more CrunchBang, only Antergos. Can't remember what I did or used, but I was able to undo the damage done. Whew!

Bearded_Blunder · 2017-03-21 01:56:18

Well it may not be my stupidest.. but it's my most recent big stupid.. tried backporting webkitgtk on a really ancient computer.. it's been chugging away for a week, and isn't done yet..

Bearded_Blunder · 2017-03-21 10:49:08

That would have been the sensible thing to do, well simply compiling on a faster box, but it's most of the way through now anyway.. and if I do that.. then I'll have wasted all that time.. if I let it complete.. it only took a long time.

KrunchTime · 2017-03-22 22:25:02

^...but what if it doesn't complete? ]:D

Bearded_Blunder · 2017-03-23 08:25:53

Then it moves higher up my personal list of "stupidest things" .. which it turns out to have done, and I have the dilemma.. do I try the backport on something faster and try to troubleshoot the failure (probably above my skill level to do), or do a Stretch / Helium netinstall. Either way, owing to a bug related to the hardware (Debian bug #783293) I need webkitgtk >= 2.4.9-3 and Jessie / Hydrogen only has 2.4.9-1 with nothing in backports.

stevep · 2017-03-24 02:56:25

There was a backport of 2.4.11 in jessie-backports, and we rebuilt it for the MX repo, but it seems to be causing some problems because Debian disabled the libwebkit2gtk-3.0 packages from the build, and it was pulled from the backports repo.

Just by happenstance, I've been rebuilding the Ubuntu xenial 2.4.11 webkitgtk packages today, because they did not remove that, so I'm hoping that cures the issue on MX. It took up ~12GB of disk space after the package build, and some parts of the compile ate up about 4.5GB of RAM...I would guess that your older machine spent most of that week just swapping out to the swap file if it didn't have enough RAM.

I tried building the jessie-backports version a few months ago on the openSUSE Build Service, but the Jessie virtual machines would run out of RAM and just die. Maybe they've upgraded...let me try again there and see if they catch fire and halt again.

Last edited by stevep (2017-03-24 03:13:20)

stevep · 2017-03-24 18:00:41

The 32-bit backport actually succeeded, but the 64-bit ran out of memory again after nearly two hours of compiling. If you need only that version, it might fit your needs: https://software.opensuse.org//download … tk-3.0-dev

Edit: I tested the upgrade on a 32-bit Jessie-based distro, and it went smoothly, without any smoke coming out of the machine...YMMV, no guarantees.

I triggered a rebuild of 64-bit on the OBS to see if it might work on the another try, but this might just be a case of 64-bit applications using more memory.

The commands to add the keys should also be run as root, not sudo.

Last edited by stevep (2017-03-24 19:16:59)

BLizgreat! · 2017-03-25 00:01:19

Hmmmm, wonder if I should list them numerically, alphabetically or in order of magnitude?

No matter, its never been so bad that this how2 by a kickbutt nixer, aka: Xaos52, couldn't pull my arse from the fire.

Lotsa times it's just as good to chroot from another gnu/Nix OS installed or just use the recovery options on the ailing install/partition.

Though when things really get hectic, it's Xaos52's method I turn to. Sheesh, should stop calling him the good doctor and change that to great doctor.

He's saved me so many hrs of hair pulling, it's ridiculous.

Vlx52! = Yep, Viva la Xaos52 !

ohnonot · 2017-03-25 07:11:42

oops, wrong thread.

Last edited by ohnonot (2017-03-25 07:12:28)

GutsAndGlory! · 2017-04-16 00:13:26

Accidentally installing an OS on the USB Key you're using to install from instead of the hard disk on a really broken computer.

Mess up the password on a fresh install you're doing for a friend and inserting the wrong password correctly upon first boot.

Trying out Windows 8 on a physical computer.

/media/user/SERIAL-NUMBER$ rm -rf /

Last edited by GutsAndGlory! (2017-04-16 00:14:19)

jdonaghy · 2017-05-06 01:33:33

Just the usual stuff. Running DD on the wrong partition, corrupting the bootloader, typing the wrong password in both fields, etc.

And, judging by my lack of success over the last hour or so, it would seem I'm too stupid to build a custom kernel that includes support for my laptop's trackpad. I'm convinced I've tried everything, and yet the device refuses to be recognized by the kernel. It's probably something simple, and I'll eventually end up saying, "D'oh!" But, for now, I'm racking my brain.

Last edited by jdonaghy (2017-05-06 01:34:10)

dhalgren · 2017-05-06 05:06:13

Deleted /home when reinstalling. Lost so much work.

damo · 2017-05-06 05:52:19

^ I did a Shift-Delete on a directory, and didn't notice that it was /home/damo that was active 8o

But I had a backup O:)

ohnonot · 2017-05-06 07:09:45

^ pressing shift-delete in a graphical filemanager has become second nature.
shift, delete and enter (for confirmation) are really close together and i have developed a sort of wavy finger movement that does this in the fraction of a second.
that's a really bad habit.

dhalgren · 2017-05-06 08:49:04

damo wrote:

^ I did a Shift-Delete on a directory, and didn't notice that it was /home/damo that was active 8o
But I had a backup O:)

I have three backups now, and I rotate them, so I always have up-to-date, almost up-to-date, and why-bother?

#21 2017-03-11 07:16:52

Re: What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

#22 2017-03-11 10:06:33

Re: What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

#23 2017-03-11 10:08:02

Re: What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

#24 2017-03-11 18:07:52

Re: What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

#25 2017-03-11 20:05:36

Re: What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

#26 2017-03-20 22:57:53

Re: What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

#27 2017-03-21 01:56:18

Re: What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

#28 2017-03-21 10:49:08

Re: What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

#29 2017-03-22 22:25:02

Re: What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

#30 2017-03-23 08:25:53

Re: What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

#31 2017-03-24 02:56:25

Re: What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

#32 2017-03-24 18:00:41

Re: What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

#33 2017-03-25 00:01:19

Re: What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

#34 2017-03-25 07:11:42

Re: What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

#35 2017-04-16 00:13:26

Re: What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

#36 2017-05-06 01:33:33

Re: What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

#37 2017-05-06 05:06:13

Re: What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

#38 2017-05-06 05:52:19

Re: What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

#39 2017-05-06 07:09:45

Re: What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

#40 2017-05-06 08:49:04

Re: What is the most stupid thing you did on linux?

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