The Day I Challenged the IT Gods

Every IT apprentice has *that* day — the one where curiosity and confidence form an unholy alliance. This… was mine.

Begin the tale Skip to the lessons

I had just gotten my shiny new work laptop — Windows 11, fresh out of the box, smelling like productivity… and bad decisions.

Naturally, I installed WSL and Ubuntu, because what’s an IT apprentice without pretending to be a Linux wizard?

Then I remembered something I’d read on the great Internet:

“Ubuntu has a failsafe that protects you if you type sudo rm -rf /*.
It’ll stop you before you do anything stupid.”

Perfect, I thought. A harmless demo for my colleague.
I’d show them how *safe and clever* Ubuntu was.
After all, I’m practically a sysadmin now, right?

So I proudly opened my terminal, cracked my knuckles, and typed:

sudo rm -rf /

The terminal paused for a moment — as if it were whispering to the IT gods for permission.

Then… chaos.

I’d forgotten one small detail: In WSL, Ubuntu’s / isn’t really a Linux root. It’s your Windows filesystem at /mnt/c.

I had, with absolute confidence, ordered my brand-new Windows 11 laptop to delete itself. And it obeyed.

The aftermath

  • 💥 Windows files? Gone.
  • 🧩 System32? Nuked!
  • 🪦 Me? Reinstalling Windows 11 and explaining myself to management.

So yes, I learned that day that WSL doesn’t protect you from yourself. And that “Ubuntu has a failsafe” only applies to deleting *Ubuntu* — not your entire Windows installation.

The IT gods, merciful in their mysterious ways, granted me a clean slate (after a three-hour reinstall). I have since vowed to never again mock the power of sudo rm -rf.

These days, my terminal prompt turns red when I’m inside /mnt/. A little visual reminder that I am but a mortal, and the IT gods are always watching.

Lessons Learned (The Hard Way)

  • 🎨 Make dangerous paths obvious — color your prompt when in /mnt/*.
  • 🧤 Use safer rm defaults (-I or -i, keep --preserve-root).
  • 🧱 Create a wrapper that refuses to delete mounted Windows paths.
  • 🔎 Do dry-runs or move files to quarantine before deleting.
  • 🧰 Keep a rebuild checklist and dotfiles backed up — because accidents *will* happen.

Moral of the story

Don’t challenge the IT gods.
They have root access to your fate.