GNOME hangs
James Wilkinson
fedora at aprilcottage.co.uk
Thu Aug 24 17:09:52 UTC 2006
OK, it's an old thread. But I'd just like to highlight for the
archives...
Tony Nelson wrote:
> They may also have actually said to do something slightly different:
>
> rm -rf $HOME/.*
>
> That would get all the .configuration files, even for other applications.
> I'd have suggested trying a new user first, and it that worked, mv'd the
> dot files out of the way.
Wouldn't necessarily have helped (it would depend on which user issued
the command).
$HOME/.* will be matched by $HOME/..
So if $HOME is /home/user
rm -rf $HOME/.*
will expand to
rm -rf /home/user/. /home/user/..
(and all the other files in /home/user) which is equivalent to
rm -rf /home
Similarly, if root tried running that, everything on the machine would
potentially be deleted.
James.
--
New address: james | Remember, half-measures can be very effective if all you
@aprilcottage.co.uk | deal with are half-wits.
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