I accidentally untarred archive intended to be extracted in root directory, which among others included some files for /etc directory.
I went on to rm -rv ~/etc, but I quickly typed rm -rv /etc instead, and hit enter, while using a root account.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
      10·
      7 hours ago

      That’s certainly something you can do! I would personally follow the recommendation against aliasing rm though, either just using the trash tool’s auto complete or a different alias altogether.

      Reason being as someone mentioned below: You don’t want to give yourself a false sense of security or complacency with such a dangerous command, especially if you use multiple systems.

      I liken it to someone starting to handle weapons more carelessly because the one they have at home is “never loaded.” Better safe than sorry.

      • Sylveon@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        3·
        2 hours ago

        I think this is the best approach. I’ve created a short alias for my trash tool and also aliased rm to do nothing except print a warning. This way you train yourself to avoid using it. And if I really need it for some reason I can just type \rm.

        If you want to train yourself even more effectively you can also alias rm to run sl instead :)