• TxzK@lemmy.zip
    1·
    9 months ago

    Every time this gets reposted, I like to reply with this:

    :(){:|:&};:

    Run it if you dare lol

    • Skyhighatrist@lemmy.ca
      1·
      9 months ago

      I don’t know what that is, but it feels to me like it might be a fork bomb.

      Edit: Yep, fork bomb.

      • tb_@lemmy.world
        1·
        9 months ago

        Because I didn’t know what a fork bomb was:

        a fork bomb is a denial-of-service (DoS) attack wherein a process continually replicates itself to deplete available system resources, slowing down or crashing the system due to resource starvation.

        […]

        A classic example of a fork bomb is one written in Unix shell :(){ :|:& };:, possibly dating back to 1999, which can be more easily understood as

        fork() fork fork & fork

        > 
> In it, a function is defined (fork()) as calling itself (fork), then piping (|) its result into itself, all in a background job (&).
> 
> The code using a colon `:` as the function name is not valid in a shell as defined by POSIX, which only permits alphanumeric characters and underscores in function names. However, its usage is allowed in GNU Bash as an extension.

[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_bomb)
  • SGG@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    Can confirm, it takes up so much space it’s surprising they install it by default, my drive is like 99% free now.

    Unrelated, but none of my files are in my documents folder anymore and I can’t run steam, anyone know if they relied on the French language pack?

      • SGG@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        9 months ago

        It was a joke, this time.

        But back in my university days (holy shit I feel old, that was around 17 years ago), when flash drives were still new ish technology. I had installed a Linux live cd, which was a brand new idea back then, on my USB stick that also contained a bunch of my files.

        I thought it would be a fun idea to rm -rf / to see what it would do to a live cd environment.

        Then I realised it was not a fun idea as I started to see the names of my project documents being deleted.

  • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
    1·
    9 months ago

    This is

    Sudo - Super user do; or root < admin

    RM - Remove

    F - forced, it won’t warn you that you are deleting your system

    R - Recursively, it will delete every directory hereafter

    / - the start of your system…so everything but it not being there would do this as well

    Never rm -rf if you actually need to do it for something then you know well enough that it is necessary

  • laverabe@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    I get these are jokes but I really don’t find anything funny about it, it becomes a meme and then people start getting more creative and pushing it more and being more covert and people come up with other little japes then new Linux users get their shit destroyed and maybe important info gets lost or precious memories so they say Linux is a piece of shit and go back to windows.

    It’s not even funny to start with so when it inevitably inspires people to be assholes and bullies that’s all we’ve achieved.

    copied from the original post but was exactly what was going through my mind

    • fallingcats@discuss.tchncs.de
      1·
      9 months ago

      This is not malicious because it will not work. You’d need --no-preserve-root to actually do anything.

      Edit seems I was wrong

      • u000@lemmy.wtf
        1·
        9 months ago

        The use of /* might get around that, because the shell expands it to /usr /var /lib /home etc.

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
      1·
      9 months ago

      Yeah it’s a joke that’s at least a decade old, probably over two decades old.

      And one of the most important aspects of comedy is knowing your audience. If this was said to a group of linux sysadmins I guess it’s not dangerous, but it’s still an old joke so not going to get much of a laugh. But if it’s said to people new to linux, then it can cause damage. So it’s either not funny (we all heard that one before) or an asshole prank, so not funny and malicious.

    • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
      1·
      9 months ago

      Absolutely agreed. I caught major flak the last time that I saw this. Not a fan of setting up ignorant newbs to be laughed at and potentially need to write fresh resumes. Yeah, you shouldn’t take a meme at face value for advice on your professional life but, it just comes across as a bit mean-spirited.