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Strictly speaking, at some point it will delete /bin/rm, and after that it will fail to delete any more files. The suggestion by @ott to use -delete would fix this "bug" :-)

Nate Eldredge
– Nate Eldredge

2015-09-03 20:33:41 +00:00
Commented Sep 3, 2015 at 20:33
4

This avoids the built-in protection in GNU rm, which blatantly refuses to remove everything from the root downward.

Simon Richter
– Simon Richter

2015-09-04 02:43:41 +00:00
Commented Sep 4, 2015 at 2:43
3

Note that this command won't be equivalent to sudo rm -rf /. Attempt to remove / is prohibit by POSIX rm (busybox rm does remove /).

cuonglm
– cuonglm

2015-09-04 08:55:03 +00:00
Commented Sep 4, 2015 at 8:55
As Cuonglm said, sudo rm -rf / is harmless on POSIX (and most other) systems, so no, this is not like it at all!

terdon
– terdon ♦

2015-09-04 11:02:10 +00:00
Commented Sep 4, 2015 at 11:02

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