Koobelakahn
May 6th, 2010, 01:55 AM
So, last night, I had an urge to write up a short story. So I did, and I figured I would share it with you all, seeing that the story is about our beloved Linux. Feel free to copy and paste and edit it as you see fit, but be sure to credit me in the original creation of it. The way I see it, if this story gets around, that means more people will be helped. So without further adieu, here you go.
The Dangers of Running Unknown Commands -By Steven Inglese
The coder was staring at his computer screen, his finger poised over the “Enter” key, waiting to execute the command. As he was staring, the potential consequences of his actions began to weigh in on him. What would happen if he ran the code. Even worse, what would happen if he didn't? These questions hit him hard. Finally, with the speed of a cobra, he struck the “Enter” key. The computer buzzed to life! The screen began flickering, windows began closing spontaneously, and the computer fan was spinning as fast as possible. After about a minute, the terminal window closed, and the desktop with which he was all to familiar, stared him in the face. This was the moment of truth. This is where he would test to see if the command he ran did as he expected.
The friendly computer users on the internet told him of the potential power that could be unlocked by running this command. He clicked on the button titled “Applications” on his desktop. Never before have the choices been so abundant. It was the same menu as always, but since he ran the code, he knew for a fact that nothing would be same. He clicked on the word “Internet” then went to Firefox Internet Browser. His computer buzzed, thinking about what he just clicked. Then it happened. An error window reared its ugly head. “Executable not found!”
He stared at the screen, flabbergasted. “Oh,” the coder thought to himself “Probably just a bug. I never really liked Firefox anyways.” He then clicked on the applications button again, and tried running another program. Same error. “Executable not found!” The coder began to panic. “Did I do something wrong? I don't think I did. I ran the code exactly as I saw it! I copy pasted it from the guys message. I know, I will restart the computer! It probably just needs to be restarted.” At that, he clicked on the power button on his taskbar, and tried to shut down his computer. Another error popped up, but it went away too fast for him to read. Suddenly, the screen went black, and lines upon lines of code began to show up on his display. This has never happened before. What was his computer doing? The lines of code were going too fast to read thoroughly, but the first word was the same throughout every line. “FAILED:” The coder began to get nervous. What, he wondered, was going to happen next? The computer then turned off, and the screen went black. He pressed the power button on the tower, and waited. He then saw the most dreaded error of Linux users everywhere! The horrid “Grub loading error:” showed.
The coder stared at the line for a good 5 minutes before he realized what he had done. 500 gigabytes of photos, music, videos, programs, everything was now gone, with no hope of getting any of that information back. “I only ran one command!” he shouted to himself. “Why did I run that command!” He slammed his fist on the table. He was nearly in tears, for he had lost his virtual life savings. He then stood from his chair, and shouted for all to hear “From this day forward, I shall forever remember the affects of running sudo rm -rf/* ! Never again will I run code without looking up what it does first!” With that, he popped the Live! CD into the tray, and reinstalled his beloved O/S, with a new lesson he had learned. Never EVER run a command, unless you know EXACTLY what it does.
The Dangers of Running Unknown Commands -By Steven Inglese
The coder was staring at his computer screen, his finger poised over the “Enter” key, waiting to execute the command. As he was staring, the potential consequences of his actions began to weigh in on him. What would happen if he ran the code. Even worse, what would happen if he didn't? These questions hit him hard. Finally, with the speed of a cobra, he struck the “Enter” key. The computer buzzed to life! The screen began flickering, windows began closing spontaneously, and the computer fan was spinning as fast as possible. After about a minute, the terminal window closed, and the desktop with which he was all to familiar, stared him in the face. This was the moment of truth. This is where he would test to see if the command he ran did as he expected.
The friendly computer users on the internet told him of the potential power that could be unlocked by running this command. He clicked on the button titled “Applications” on his desktop. Never before have the choices been so abundant. It was the same menu as always, but since he ran the code, he knew for a fact that nothing would be same. He clicked on the word “Internet” then went to Firefox Internet Browser. His computer buzzed, thinking about what he just clicked. Then it happened. An error window reared its ugly head. “Executable not found!”
He stared at the screen, flabbergasted. “Oh,” the coder thought to himself “Probably just a bug. I never really liked Firefox anyways.” He then clicked on the applications button again, and tried running another program. Same error. “Executable not found!” The coder began to panic. “Did I do something wrong? I don't think I did. I ran the code exactly as I saw it! I copy pasted it from the guys message. I know, I will restart the computer! It probably just needs to be restarted.” At that, he clicked on the power button on his taskbar, and tried to shut down his computer. Another error popped up, but it went away too fast for him to read. Suddenly, the screen went black, and lines upon lines of code began to show up on his display. This has never happened before. What was his computer doing? The lines of code were going too fast to read thoroughly, but the first word was the same throughout every line. “FAILED:” The coder began to get nervous. What, he wondered, was going to happen next? The computer then turned off, and the screen went black. He pressed the power button on the tower, and waited. He then saw the most dreaded error of Linux users everywhere! The horrid “Grub loading error:” showed.
The coder stared at the line for a good 5 minutes before he realized what he had done. 500 gigabytes of photos, music, videos, programs, everything was now gone, with no hope of getting any of that information back. “I only ran one command!” he shouted to himself. “Why did I run that command!” He slammed his fist on the table. He was nearly in tears, for he had lost his virtual life savings. He then stood from his chair, and shouted for all to hear “From this day forward, I shall forever remember the affects of running sudo rm -rf/* ! Never again will I run code without looking up what it does first!” With that, he popped the Live! CD into the tray, and reinstalled his beloved O/S, with a new lesson he had learned. Never EVER run a command, unless you know EXACTLY what it does.