@Wolf: You’re absolutely right — this is much ado about nothing. And I apologize if I’m coming across as some kind of evangelist. Until two days ago, when everyone came stomping through my blog and made it into a big deal, I couldn’t've cared less.

The only reason it’s an issue at all is because someone else thinks it’s funny to serve that command as a solution to a video card problem, or a sound issue, or a misbehaving game. And since it happened in my “back yard” (which is to say the forums), then it became an issue for me, and then I tried it, and then realized it really shouldn’t work that way, and that’s all I’ve done with it.

So again, you’re right, this much energy should be expended on real bugs with real repercussions on usability and function. And perhaps if no more juveniles spam the beginner’s area with that command, then we can all go back to what we were doing, fixing or playing, a month ago.

I looked around a little:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=2010807&postcount=23
http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/Treating-_002f-specially.html#Treating-_002f-specially

The ch* commands can also lead to reinstalls when run on / or /usr for ex (we see that quite often on UF).

I am not sure what to make and think of these. Should it be user based and somehow offered during or after the install procedure?

“The only thing it would do is insulate one random Ubuntu newcomer from deleting their entire system. It’s not perfect and there are lots of ways around it, but doesn’t one small safety feature enabled at the start make more sense”.

Think of it this way Mandla, this whole thingie is a red-herring,….a big stink over nothing.

If your airbags don’t go off, you might die, right? What happens if “one random Ubuntu newcomer” deletes his OS, though? His looses the time it took him to download and install a CD. That is about it. Maybe a couple three pirated songs if he can get his resource hungry torrent client to work, which is doubtful and probably not much more.

By the time he has any thing invested in his setup that is substantial, he almost certainly has enough moxie not to fall for some punk’s bs. How could he not have? Be almost impossible not to.

The time wasted on this so-called problem could be much better spent by the computer literate helping the developers code updates that don’t rat my network, like the recent samba ones did, instead of worrying about a problem that has no existence in reality.

So there.;-)

rm * whatever = WMD