On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, James McKenzie wrote:
Matthew Saltzman wrote:On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Leandro Melo wrote:
"rm /usr/*" will delete only files in the directory /usr. Directories will remain intact. To recursively delete directories and their contents, use "rm -r <path>". If you are getting prompts for every file, use "\rm /usr/*". Read "man rm" carefully.If you were do delete the /usr directory, you will end up reinstalling Linux.
FYI, here's the contents of my /usr/ dir:
$ ls /usr bin etc include kerberos libexec lost+found share tmp doc games java lib local sbin src X11R6
Why? There are usually no regular files in /usr (and the OP knew he had none). "rm *" removes only regular files in the current directory. It doesn't delete or descend directories. Deleting directories requires "rm -r". (Sure, you do have to be careful, but if you don't do it wrong, you won't be screwed.)
If you are nervous, you could "rm *.*". That would probably get most files and no directories (as none have extensions). Then clean up the rest by hand.
I recommend the following:
unzip -t <insert zip file name here> > filelist.txt
list out filelist.txt to a printer.
You can then use this file as input to a script file which can then step through the file and rm (remove) the files that were extracted in the /usr directory by accident
This will work, but it seems overly paranoid in this case.
-- Matthew Saltzman
Clemson University Math Sciences mjs AT clemson DOT edu http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs
