Re: OT: data destruction classics (was: Re: Error converting from 1.4.4.1 to 1.5.0?)

[Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>]

On Wed, 14 Feb 2007, Shawn O. Pearce wrote:

> Simon 'corecode' Schubert <corecode@fs.ei.tum.de> wrote:
> > Bill Lear wrote:
> > >I'm still muttering to myself that I could be that dumb...
> > 
> > Still better than trying to backup with
> > 
> > tar czvf data* destfile.tar.gz
> > 
> > automatic tape backup is a real helper then :)
> 
> or manual backup to "tape", where the tape device supplied was
> the only disk...  SunOS 4 did not take too kindly to its kernel,
> swap space, root fs being overwritten...

Hey, I can beat that (stop me at any time you've heard this story. No? Ok, 
then..)

I auto-dialed my harddisk. 

I had this auto-dialer, that would send "+++" + "atz" + "atdt..." to dial 
the number to the university dial-in farm that was always busy for hours 
at a time, and since I've never been much of a user interface person ("No 
really? Linus, please tell more! I would never have guessed!"), it was 
basically

	autodial /dev/ttyS1

or something very similar. It was really stupid too, so if it got some 
other answer than "BUSY" or "CONNECTED" back (or timed out), it would just 
go on to the next number and try again.

Anyway, the smarter among you will already see how I by mistake filled up 
one of my harddisk partitions with Hayes "AT" modem commands, and deleted 
my Minix installation. AND THE BASTARD NEVER ANSWERED!

That was one big (perhaps _the_) impetus for just deciding to make Linux 
good enough that I wouldn't need to actually reinstall Minix. Happily, it 
was already able to bootstrap itself at that point, it just wasn't quite 
as good yet. I fixed that in short order, and indeed, I never did end up 
feeding the 17 floppy disks into my computer to reinstall Minix.

Moral of the story: "Stupidity is what makes the world go round."

Or something like that.

			Linus