The Shell Game

I’m in the process of testing out a rpm for BOINC. Woo hoo!

Some notes to self:

• After creating a tarball of one’s working install. One needs to move it somewhere for safe keeping. One’s data partition is a great place for said safe keeping. When one needs to move something to said partition, it helps if one mounts said partition before trying to move it. Somehow I think I now have a /Data directory hanging out somewhere. I’ll have to remove it once I find it.
• rmdir only works on empty directories. If there are files in there, you have to use rm -r.
• Using rm -r on a directory that has a metric ton of files takes a very long time because it runs in interactive mode. If one is really sure one wants to get rid of the whole thing, use rm -rf.
• Once you remove a directory containing a file, the soft links pointing to said file break. And programs that need said link to file to function correctly will also break.
• It is impossible to echo something > broken_soft_link_name. You must rm broken_soft_link_name first.
• Wiping out a users home directory is a Bad Thing ®. Not having all the hidden config files causes Very Bad Things ® to happen, including not being able to access the account from the shell. Having a backup is a Good Thing ®. Knowing how to restore said backup is an Even Better Thing ®. And finding out that said restored backup works is an Extremely Good Thing ®.

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Watch this space for further updates…