this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2024
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Though the Windows thing was really funny πŸ˜‚.

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[–] bort@sopuli.xyz 95 points 3 months ago (3 children)

the linux-file-deletion is used as a example for good software design. It has a very simple interface with little room for error while doing exactly what the caller intended.

In John Ousterhout's "software design philosophy" a chapter is called "define errors out of existence". In windows "delete" is defined as "the file is gone from the HDD". So it must wait for all processes to release that file. In Linux "unlink" is defined as "the file can't be accessed anymore". So the file is gone from the filesystem immediately and existing file-handles from other processes will life on.

The trade-off here is: "more errors for the caller of delete" vs "more errors due to filehandles to dead files". And as it turns out, the former creates issues for both developers and for users, while the later creates virtually no errors in practice.

[–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 116 points 3 months ago (4 children)

doing exactly what the caller intended.

No, no. Exactly what the user told it to do. Not what they intended. There's a difference.

[–] hstde@feddit.de 36 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Exactly type rm -rf / instead of rm -rf ./ and you ducked up. Well you messed up a long time ago by having privileges to delete everything, but then again, you are human, some mistakes will be made.

[–] taladar@sh.itjust.works 35 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Deleting the current directory via ./ seems contrived since you would just use . or more likely the directory name from outside the directory. What does happen is rm -rf ${FOO}/ while ${FOO} is an empty string.

[–] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 19 points 3 months ago

Not sure if you're referencing the Steam incident, but Steam did exactly that: https://www.theregister.com/2015/01/17/scary_code_of_the_week_steam_cleans_linux_pcs/

[–] NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Even so, . and / are right next to each other so it's a likely typo. You might press enter before you catch it.

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[–] PrettyFlyForAFatGuy@feddit.uk 5 points 3 months ago

yup, did that one on a server at work. had to go cap in hand to my manager to get him to fix it

[–] Technofrood@feddit.uk 17 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Don't modern versions of rm block calling on / unless you pass a separate flag?

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[–] lurker2718@lemmings.world 7 points 3 months ago

Yes, the file itself (so the data and inode) is not gone as long as the handles live on. Only the reference is gone. You canstill recover the file. https://superuser.com/questions/283102/how-to-recover-deleted-file-if-it-is-still-opened-by-some-process#600743

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[–] RealFknNito@lemmy.world 57 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I like the windows delete philosophy of asking me before I delete something.

I fucking hate the windows delete philosophy of telling me I don't have access after I said yes.

I'm this close to daily driving as Sadmin

[–] Agility0971@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago

Better would be to delete without confirmation but being able to quickly reverse it with Ctrl+Z

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[–] Koof_on_the_Roof@lemmy.world 54 points 3 months ago (2 children)

One drive has a trash for the trash. I’m still not convinced those files are gone after the 2nd empty, I think they just don’t show the other trash cans

[–] LostXOR@fedia.io 17 points 3 months ago (2 children)

It's trash cans all the way down.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The cloud is just someone else's trash can

[–] BlackRoseAmongThorns@slrpnk.net 7 points 3 months ago (2 children)

You know what they say, one man's trash...

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[–] Swarfega@lemm.ee 9 points 3 months ago

Outlook on Exchange is like this. You can delete stuff to the Deleted Items directory. If you delete it from there it goes into another area called 'Recover deleted items'.

[–] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 45 points 3 months ago (1 children)

GUI file managers generally have "Trash" feature as well.

[–] Ziglin@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

They usually support one but it is generally not provided by the file manager it's self. This means that assuming that the file managers use the same trash system you can trash a file on one recover it another.

[–] flambonkscious@sh.itjust.works 44 points 3 months ago

The windows shell has really gone downhill in recent years, with spontaneous file locks and random hangs

It's always the AV...

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 29 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

I'm so annoyed when I tell rm to delete a terabyte of data and it's nowhere near instant. I'd have probably gone insane if I was using Windows.

[–] 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works 16 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

1TB for Windows... depends on file size, but let's presume you have 1TB of Word documents... just hit Enter and go watch the Matrix trilogy.

[–] Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

"what are you trying to tell me? I'll be able to select 'yes' when it asks me if I'm sure I want to delete?"

"No, Neo. I'm saying when you switch to Linux you won't have to."

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[–] don@lemm.ee 22 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Left side: I regularly go bowling with the demon core

Right side: I have read the demon core’s wiki 314 times

[–] 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

314 πŸ€”... like as in Pi*100?

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[–] CriticalMiss@lemmy.world 19 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I never deleted my root system with rm but I did dd go sda instead of sdb and ended up losing my data.

[–] Rin@lemm.ee 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Holy shit, me too. 6TiB poof

[–] 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

With great power comes great responsibility. Do check twice what you write.

Jokes aside, it has happened to almost everyone... and then you learn to QUADRUPLE CHECK dd commands.

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[–] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 15 points 3 months ago (4 children)
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[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 15 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Now wonder, which one is will be preferred by people who aren't tech savvy.

[–] porl@lemmy.world 13 points 3 months ago

They are not likely to be using the terminal. Pretty much every graphical file browser will ask for confirmation upon delete, and many will use a rubbish bin by default.

[–] Ziglin@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

To be fair, assuming you are not using a wastebasket which comes pre installed in a lot of distros, you still need the right permissions to delete files that belong to the system and if you're using rm you have to use the -rf option to remove a folder and it's contents.

[–] tfw_no_toiletpaper@feddit.de 12 points 3 months ago (6 children)

If you're going for cli, windows also can do rm -r -Force

[–] Diplomjodler@feddit.de 20 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Or just do Shift Delete in Explorer.

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[–] Hupf@feddit.de 15 points 3 months ago

Use the --force Luke

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[–] jbk@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] maiskanzler@feddit.de 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Btrfs snapshots/subvolumes can now also be deleted with rm. It's no longer necessary to use 'btrfs subvolume delete'

[–] 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Really?

As I always say, you get the best linux info from linux memes 😁.

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[–] IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Every time I see I've of these memes my mind goes straight to infomercials.

[–] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.de 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Oh well. Didn't really like my mum that much anyways 😒

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[–] EnderMB@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago

One of my first experiences with Linux at university was watching a classmate install Slackware, and then (for a laugh) dragging everything into the recycle bin.

They got a passing grade, because the lecturer saw their working installation, but they learned a valuable lesson in Linux that if you delete something, it'll fucking delete it.

[–] Heavybell@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Is that actually true? Does Windows check every file with Defender before deleting it?

[–] 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works 17 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (8 children)

Not just every file deleted, every file written to disk as well (downloaded, extracted from an archive, whatever).

It's also how most AV software works, except Defender is slow AF.

[–] vox@sopuli.xyz 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

also, defender is synchronous by default (e.g. nothing gets written until it gets scanned, and scanning parallelization is limited), and can only act asynchronously (aka write first, then queue check) on "trusted dev drives" (aka ReFS-based virtual vhdx partitions aimed at developers as a solution to horrible ntfs throughput, especially if defender is enabled)

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[–] HStone32@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Huh. All that security, and yet there are still so many viruses capable of infecting windows.

[–] deur@feddit.nl 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Huh.... all that immune system yet there are still so many viruses capable of infecting humans.

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