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
this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2021
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rmis the unix command for remove — it deletes files and directories.The
-rflag, or--recursiverecursively traverses all the directories in the path file that you specify (so like if you have a directorystuff/which has filesa.txt,b.pdf, and subdirectoryc/thenrm -r stuff/would remove both files as well asc/and its contents.The
-fflag, 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 (thesudoinsudo rm -rf /) which requires you to enter your administrator password and to also pass the flag--no-preserve-rootwhich was created to keep people from deleting their whole system because someone named pigpoopballs69 on a random forum said to runsudo rm -rf /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
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: `