Suicide Linux (2009)
Source: Hacker News
Overview
You know how sometimes if you mistype a filename in Bash, it corrects your spelling and runs the command anyway?* Such as when changing directory, or opening a file.
I have an idea: Suicide Linux. Any time—any time—you type any remotely incorrect command, the interpreter creatively resolves it into rm -rf / and wipes your hard drive.
It’s a game. Like walking a tightrope. You have to see how long you can continue to use the operating system before losing all your data.
Update 2011-12-26
Someone has turned Suicide Linux into a genuine Debian package. Good show!
A video demonstration is available. The reaction from the OS is actually rather underwhelming. You’d think the OS would raise some fairly urgent errors if you went around deleting parts of it?
Perhaps rm -rf / should be replaced with something with more verbose flags set. That way, when you run a bad command, you are told immediately that things are being deleted and you have a fighting chance to cancel the operation before your system becomes inoperable. This allows you to see how long you can work and how many files you can lose before the system fails entirely.
As another, slightly more serious suggestion, if Suicide Linux randomly deleted a single file without telling you every time you made a typographical error, it might be an interesting look into the stability of your operating system and an educational tool for diagnosing and repairing corrupted systems. I’m not pretending Suicide Linux has any genuine merit, of course.
Update 2015-04-18
I suppose I should finally clear this up: The autocorrect functionality I originally described here was a feature of the first Linux systems I ever used, so I assumed it was how every Linux system worked by default. Since then I’ve come to understand that it’s a completely optional extra doodad.
Update 2017-07-04
Someone (else?) has turned Suicide Linux into a Docker image. Here’s the source.
docker run --rm -it -t tiagoad/suicide-linuxUpdate 2020-11-10
Clarified wording which previously falsely implied that I created the Suicide Linux Debian package or Docker image, which I did not.