this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2026
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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If I'm breaking any rules, apologies.

I know, labeling something a repost is a lead weight, but I'm a fan of full disclosure. I posted this topic two years ago and I thoroughly enjoyed reading all the replies, I even learned a few things. Time has passed, and I figure some of you out there will have some new and interesting stories to share, so tell me:

So I was thinking of silly things I’ve done that pseudo-broke my system, or made me think I had a broken system. Like the time I put the cmd :

exit

in my ~/.bash_aliases file and I had to open a text editor to fix it because that broke all the terminals on my machine.

I’m curious what other silly things users have done to confuse themselves.

Op Op.

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[–] HouseWolf@pawb.social 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I like to tell people who are new/scared of computers that breaking stuff is part of learning. And those are seem like wizards with technology probably have the most cyber-skeletons in their closet.

Biggest "whoopsy" I've ever done was actually back on my first laptop running Windows Vista. 12yo me went on the hunt for "free frame-rate" so I could play Minecraft at higher than 15fps So I looked into overclocking and of course since I was a dumb kid, I didn't try incrementally increase the clock/power draw and instead just cranked everything to max...Yeah I didn't have a computer for a most of the year after that.

As for dumb stuff I've done on Linux, Well I once spend most of a day compiling Librewolf from source because I didn't know how the AUR worked yet. That and un-mounting my boot drive while trying to mount an iso image through the terminal one time...maybe twice...