OT: the rm bug hit me again

[Jeff Vian]

On Fri, 2006-10-27 at 14:41 +0100, Nigel Wade wrote:
> Mike McCarty wrote:
> > Arthur Pemberton wrote:
> >> On 10/25/06, Robin Laing <Robin.Laing at drdc-rddc.gc.ca> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Graphical file manager?  That isn't the *nix way of doing things.  :)
> >>>
> >>> And the -f in the rm command it to stop the "Confirm delete?" questions.
> >>>    My rm is set to confirm all deletes using alias.
> >>>
> >>> -- 
> >>
> >>
> >> How exactly did you do this? I got bit by this bug once in my Linux
> >> life, would prefer it never happens again.
> >>
> > 
> > alias rm='rm -i'
> > 
> 
> That's not a good idea as it teaches you to expect to be prompted, and you'll be 
> bitten badly some time when the alias isn't present.
> 
Strange that you feel this is wrong.
  
Fedora has from the beginning done exactly that for the root user, and
the reason is to help prevent those type human errors when you are root
and have the power of god to destroy your system.

For me, I never run as root unless absolutely necessary, and I always
preview my commands before I hit enter.

I personally like the prompt because it reminds me that I am running as
root.

> Better to alias it to some command which doesn't exist, like del, and train 
> yourself to use del. If the alias isn't present all you get is 'del: command not 
> found' rather than a depleted filesystem.

> -- 
> Nigel Wade, System Administrator, Space Plasma Physics Group,
>              University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK
> E-mail :    nmw at ion.le.ac.uk
> Phone :     +44 (0)116 2523548, Fax : +44 (0)116 2523555
>