Researchers disclose a 55-year-old vulnerability affecting macOS, Windows and Linux. Exploitation is trivial and requires no special tools. No patch exists.
While the palindromic structure of that command is pleasing to mine eye, LMDE basically called me a frickin’ idiot for trying.
I know it always asks Continue [Y/n] and there’s no yes | or echo | to force that, so I was reasonably sure I’d get away with it, but I don’t think I could argue with the sentiment had it actually said that.
(Also, I have Timeshift, so that would have saved my bacon but for the inconvenience of having to go through a rollback.)
Anyway, here’s what it said (scrolling may be required to see the last line which is clearly code for “you’re an idiot”):
First of all, it pleases me greatly that you appreciated the palindromic nature of it. That pleased me as I wrote it (you know how you can write something and realize that it’s unintentionally great? lol)
Second of all, it pleases me that you tried it. lol. I was originally a DOS/Windows guy, so while I know a tiny bit of the Deep Magic, it’s safe to say I’m a fairly average user on the Linux side of things, though I do love learning.
How brilliant. Just like with rm / -rf protection that you can override, but must override… I had actually assumed (without thought) that sudo and apt were built-in commands like dir and cd in DOS, so there wouldn’t be anything to remove. But makes sense that everything is a package.
Today, thanks to you, I learned the most delightful thing. Thank you. <3
I mean, pretty much. Or rather, everything is in a package. Back in the old days they were called source distributions or .tar.gzs and you compiled everything yourself. Gentoo, for example, still does everything that way, but uses the name ‘package’ anyway.
The coreutils package, or something like it, contains multiple commands that a bare bones, command-line-only system would need, but some things are built into the shells. e.g. cd is always shell-based. echo may or may not be. ls (dir) is in coreutils.
There are also things like busybox that, in a single executable from a single package, contains a stripped-down version of everything in coreutils, a shell and a handful of other things too.
Honestly, I want to be allowed to break my system. I own it, it should do exactly what I say, warnings are fine, but software deciding it knows better than you is how we have reached the inescapable technogulag of the now.
I will say, in the world where you can’t do anything with “con:” or “prn:” or a few others in DOS, the fact that you CAN force Linux to let you completely and utterly fuck yourself if you truly want to… is great. lol
In my experience, Linux only allows you to do 1 incredibly stupid thing at a time. Remove sudo? Cool. Remove apt? You betcha. Remove apt AND sudo? You’re fucking nuts, I ain’t doing that
Gotta minimize your attack surface sudo apt remove konsole for any Debian kde based distros
sudo apt remove apt sudoI used the stones to destroy the stones
While the palindromic structure of that command is pleasing to mine eye, LMDE basically called me a frickin’ idiot for trying.
I know it always asks
Continue [Y/n]and there’s noyes |orecho |to force that, so I was reasonably sure I’d get away with it, but I don’t think I could argue with the sentiment had it actually said that.(Also, I have Timeshift, so that would have saved my bacon but for the inconvenience of having to go through a rollback.)
Anyway, here’s what it said (scrolling may be required to see the last line which is clearly code for “you’re an idiot”):
REMOVING: apt apt-utils mint-meta-cinnamon mintsources mintupdate sudo apt-file command-not-found mint-meta-core mintsystem python3-repolib WARNING: The following essential packages will be removed. This should NOT be done unless you know exactly what you are doing! apt Summary: Upgrading: 0, Installing: 0, Removing: 12, Not Upgrading: 1 Freed space: 52.3 MB Error: Removing essential system-critical packages is not permitted. This might break the system.First of all, it pleases me greatly that you appreciated the palindromic nature of it. That pleased me as I wrote it (you know how you can write something and realize that it’s unintentionally great? lol)
Second of all, it pleases me that you tried it. lol. I was originally a DOS/Windows guy, so while I know a tiny bit of the Deep Magic, it’s safe to say I’m a fairly average user on the Linux side of things, though I do love learning.
How brilliant. Just like with
rm / -rfprotection that you can override, but must override… I had actually assumed (without thought) thatsudoandaptwere built-in commands likedirandcdin DOS, so there wouldn’t be anything to remove. But makes sense that everything is a package.Today, thanks to you, I learned the most delightful thing. Thank you. <3
I mean, pretty much. Or rather, everything is in a package. Back in the old days they were called source distributions or
.tar.gzs and you compiled everything yourself. Gentoo, for example, still does everything that way, but uses the name ‘package’ anyway.The
coreutilspackage, or something like it, contains multiple commands that a bare bones, command-line-only system would need, but some things are built into the shells. e.g.cdis always shell-based.echomay or may not be.ls(dir) is incoreutils.There are also things like
busyboxthat, in a single executable from a single package, contains a stripped-down version of everything in coreutils, a shell and a handful of other things too.Honestly, I want to be allowed to break my system. I own it, it should do exactly what I say, warnings are fine, but software deciding it knows better than you is how we have reached the inescapable technogulag of the now.
You can, if you create an empty file at
/etc/apt/break-my-systemfirst. It’s intentionally not mentioned to prevent another Linus situationWow, I thought you might be joking but this is real
https://github.com/pop-os/apt/pull/1/files#diff-94ba980dc72616d5d15b341b827cb979343fcb0f20c4e0ab8910fa2e502e48e2R310
Because of course you can.
I will say, in the world where you can’t do anything with “con:” or “prn:” or a few others in DOS, the fact that you CAN force Linux to let you completely and utterly fuck yourself if you truly want to… is great. lol
In my experience, Linux only allows you to do 1 incredibly stupid thing at a time. Remove sudo? Cool. Remove apt? You betcha. Remove apt AND sudo? You’re fucking nuts, I ain’t doing that
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html#four-freedoms
Freedom 0 says I can be nuts and that clankers better obey
You could always try using “sudo dpkg -r --force-all apt” instead. It won’t clean up the dependencies, admittedly.