Not going to lie. Many years ago on one of my first Linux installs that I actually built up to be more than just a dev playground, I deleted my bootloader... it just let me do that, no scary confirm. That is the day I learned Linux is guardrails-off, lol.
this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2026
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My personal hurdle as teenager always was having to keep windows on same disk for my sisters to use while struggling to install Linux besides it so I could have that semi transparent terminal like in the movies. Can't even count how many times I've bricked bootloader because of that, but when it worked I felt like I'm a president
Windows is the best program to use if you want to accidentally lose your boot ability. I haven't bothered to try dual boot for 10 years because I got tired of the bullshit.
Really especially at the my teenage times, there was no Google to help you, no mentors to guide you. You got some shitty homemade linux distro nobody ever heard of on CD from a friend and only way was through trial and error. Funny times
A mistake in Linux can cause it to uninstall its bootloader.
A mistake in Windows can also cause it to uninstalling Linux's bootloader.
Speaking from experience, windows will gladly uninstall the linux bootloader without mistakes or errors involved. Pretty sure that's just what a successful update is for microslop.
Windows IS a mistake.
Technically speaking you don't need a bootloader to boot Linux, with uefi of course you can use efistub and just boot from there but you could also have a separate Linux distro on a USB stick than chroot into your main one. Hell even if you uninstall the kernel there are still ways to repair the system.
Linux is the parent that let's their child put a fork into the electrical socket and then says "Have you learned anything?"
*lets
If you say so!
Linux is the parent tells their child "Lets put a fork into the electrical socket" and then says "Have you learned anything?"
Get your damn hands off my Lets!
Msg unclear system dead
Just make sure to reinstall a bootloader before the next reboot. Or bring one one a USB stick when you need it. Or just copy me and boot me in a VM. What do I care? I'm just a kernel.
"Am afraid you can't do that"
Sigh "sudo uninstall the bootloader"
Yes, do as I say!
When I grow up there will be a day when everybody has to do what IIIIII say...
... and the irony that Windows can also fuck up your bootloader in a dual boot scenario.
Windows doesn't let you really screw your system because it's its work and it's very jealous of it.
Linux does let you fuck around and find out lol
But then you find out, and you learn, and we become better users for it.
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Linux does not "let you fuck around" in fact its says "you are root and if you root I assume u know what you do!"
And yeah i learned that the hard way when it didnt threw any errors at me doing stuff as root...
10/10 would do it again!
I've forgotten i was root, thought I was back to normal user, fat fingered a command, and removed tons of directories. I actually learn more fixing my fuck ups than when I reading books. Nothing like pressure to really focus you!
The best teacher is a fuck up
That happened to me with /etc/ . That was not a fun experience.
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Edge is cancer, it randomly opens and takes minutes to load before recognizing closing it.
In the old days task manager would close it, but task manager is now worthless. God I fucking hate Microsoft
You know, as much as I don't love AI, a small model sitting in the terminal of noob installations might be a useful thing.
update graphics driver
:hey, that's not a command, but if you're looking to do that, you should .... (step by step process)
That's actually a good idea, just a tiny local model just to help you learn how to work in a terminal. I would have loved that when I first made the jump, the RTFM crowd almost made me give up.
I've been avoiding RTFM for 30 years. command --help at best. Whoever writes the manual pages and I just don't see eye to eye on documentation.
command - description
20 examples of common usage
exhaustive list of options with a short paragraph each and acceptable usage.
that's what I want.
It seems either they want to write you a 50 page novel mentioning random options or just give you 250 options with loose references of what's not allowed with what.
I've been throwing a lot of my shell scripts into llm and asking for best practice updates, it's shocking how much cool shit it out there that i've never even considered.
today's gem:
script -q ~/command.log
do a bunch of crap
exit
script get's written
put that together with SSH.
Now you log ssh sessions on all servers to one file. You can go back and farm that for history.
script that out so that on exit it expunges export, sql and vault type passwords/keys.
the RTFM crowd almost made me give up.
Ya, there just gatekeeping skum that want to feel better than everyone else.
Learning to not ask questions, feeling like a pleb when everyone else is a guru, and having RTFM yelled at you is part of the Linux experience. What else do you expect me to do when someone asks me a question? Provide that new user with a level headed answer that concisely addresses their problem in-order to encourage them to join the Linux community and help it to grow? Are you even listening to yourself right now, you sound crazy.
I've... seen this? Well, not an AI model, but I know I've seen something where it takes common words and gives you the best guess on commands, and even common typos.
There is a program called thefuck that does this - can fix things like gti instead of git etc..
Pour one out for the real heros
yeah, Ubuntu has a command-not-found handler. it sets up .bashrc with /usr/lib/command-not-found when you miss a cli match.
EatingOnions is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
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