Scheduled Maintenance: We are aware of an issue with Google, AOL, and Yahoo services as email providers which are blocking new registrations. We are trying to fix the issue and we have several internal and external support tickets in process to resolve the issue. Please see: viewtopic.php?t=158230

 

 

 

Stupidest terminal commands?

Off-Topic discussions about science, technology, and non Debian specific topics.
Post Reply
Message
Author
bedtime
Posts: 146
Joined: 2012-12-16 19:34
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 6 times

Stupidest terminal commands?

#1 Post by bedtime »

This is just a silly post if anyone cares to join in.

Often when reading tutorials, I see examples of commands used in ways that make little sense or are generally not useful. It was bumping into such a demonstration yesterday that inspired this post...

If you have a command, a command with parameters, or a small script, which is, well, a trifle daft :roll:, please feel free to post it.

Here is mine:

Code: Select all

$ sleep 10&; foo bar
Note: Please do not post commands that would be harmful to the someones system; all commands should be able to be executed safely!

User avatar
4D696B65
Site admin
Site admin
Posts: 2696
Joined: 2009-06-28 06:09
Been thanked: 85 times

Re: Stupidest terminal commands?

#2 Post by 4D696B65 »

Using sudo with commands that do not require root privileges. I'm sure we've all seen many of those.

bedtime
Posts: 146
Joined: 2012-12-16 19:34
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 6 times

Re: Stupidest terminal commands?

#3 Post by bedtime »

4D696B65 wrote:Using sudo with commands that do not require root privileges. I'm sure we've all seen many of those.
Lets try to display an example for each.

So, perhaps:

Code: Select all

$ sudo top

ruffwoof
Posts: 298
Joined: 2016-08-20 21:00

Re: Stupidest terminal commands?

#4 Post by ruffwoof »

Linux/BSD can show different levels of self awareness

Code: Select all

ar m God
Might show "God does not exist" or "creating God"

But not sexually aware

Code: Select all

make love
Don't know how to make love

User avatar
Head_on_a_Stick
Posts: 14114
Joined: 2014-06-01 17:46
Location: London, England
Has thanked: 81 times
Been thanked: 132 times

Re: Stupidest terminal commands?

#5 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

I despise superfluous commands, useless use of `cat` is the prime example of this:

Code: Select all

cat foo | grep bar
Rather than

Code: Select all

grep bar foo
Or using `echo` & redirection rather than a simple here string (or document), so this:

Code: Select all

echo foo > bar
instead of

Code: Select all

tee bar <<<"foo"
deadbang

User avatar
debiman
Posts: 3063
Joined: 2013-03-12 07:18

Re: Stupidest terminal commands?

#6 Post by debiman »

ruffwoof wrote:

Code: Select all

make love
i always liked

Code: Select all

man woman
:mrgreen:

...but here's a more serious one:
i once tried to set up a caldav server on my kitchen server - radicale, to be precise, with setup instructions.
at some point it instructs me to add a radicale user, with / as home!
... after a while i decided that i don't like radicale so much, so i deleted the radicale user - i used the userdel command with the -f switch (that also removes the home directory).
guess what happened!!!
all my music was on that same partition.
i'm still recovering from that, almost a year later.

Post Reply