On Tue, 12 Jun 2001 18:05:08 -0400, jesus X <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
somehow managed to type:
>JTK wrote:
>> > That's one of the things I've liked the Mac system "up until OS-X" is
>> > that you can't wipe out all the contents of the hard drive you are
>> > working on by accident. It has to be a deliberate act.
>> OS X lets you wipe out your root drive accidentally? Wowzers.
>
>No, nor can you do so on a PC. Phil's idea of an accident is quite dramatic
>indeed. According to Phil's idea of accidents, it's also possible for a steam
>engine train to accidentally hit a deer while in orbit of pluto.
Disclaimer: I've not used OS X.
If OS X gives you access to a fully-functional Unix command line, then yes
it should be very easy to hose your root partition.
One of the favourite methods of system administrators worldwide would be
slipping on the space-bar at the wrong time, and typing "rm -rf tmp /*"
although there have been far more esoteric methods involving writing
garbage directly to the disk device file in /dev.
If you don't know at least one person who has trashed a system like this
by accident, then you've probably not been in system administration very
long.
Charles Miller
(And if you haven't then sat through the story of how they rescued the
whole system without requiring a restore, through the use of only
emacs, a pocket-knife and a roll of duct-tape, then you're a luckier
man than I)
