"rm -rf /" fanclub

From: <deeptech71_at_gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2012 23:41:53 +0100
Well, I did not actually get a full membership to the "rm -rf /"
fanclub, but I managed to remove all installed ports, basically
requiring a full reinstall. Here's how it happened:

Once upon a time, I did a full reinstall (not because of "rm -rf
/"-like things). I kept the old installation's full filesystem
hierarchy located in /old. I was then going through the old hierarchy
to salvage important bits and delete the rest. At one point, I was in
/old/usr, and did "rm -rf X11R6/ bin/ lib/ ...". I was a bit hasty,
and forgot to remove the ending backslashes from the directory names,
which were inserted by csh's autocompletion. And as it turns out,
X11R6 is actually a symlink to /usr/local, and not usr/local or
.usr/local! Also, /home is a symlink to /usr/home, and not usr/home or
./usr/home, but I managed to stay clear of that deathtrap.

In a web search, I found that someone was about to fix the /home
symlink in 2004 [1]. Uhm, any time soon?

BTW, is the existence of the X11R6 symlink still required for some
compatibility?

[1] http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hackers/2004-January/005391.html
Received on Thu Feb 23 2012 - 22:08:01 UTC

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