back to article World's most frustrating televised Linux install just got more frustrating

Hundreds of people are trying to install Arch Linux on a machine at the same time in the same terminal, using a voting system to decide the next keypress. It's horrifically frustrating watching an attempt to run makefs hijacked with a slowly typed rm -rf / command; the filesystem-wiping order thwarted at the last moment by …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    has to be said

    If a Gentoo hijacking does eventually succeed then we are talking about this installation experiment ranking up there with the pitch drop experiment in duration to finish.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: has to be said

      Pitch drop - so quite quick then? More like the longest running piece of music being played out somewhere in Germany until 2640 see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Slow_as_Possible.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Gentoooooooooo

    I remember running #emerge -e world on my last but two (or was it three) laptop. 1200 odd packages took nearly a week to chomp through. The current machine is running the same original install of the next one and munches through LibreOffice in about an hour, whilst I play games, browse and try to ignore the burning sensation and the ticking sound from the 'leccy meter.

    Trying to install Arch keystroke by keystroke takes me back to my first Gentoo install in 2002. For reference I recently got wifeys current machine up and running in about an hour with Arch and a full install of KDE. Cracking distro but a distributed install could take a while.

  3. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

    Terroirists?!

    a rogue backhoe operator

    What next, radicalized bulldozer drivers? Will drones have JCB-targeting algorithms installed?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Terroirists?!

      >radicalized bulldozer drivers?

      better known as the IDF.

    2. Mephistro
      Pint

      Re: Terroirists?!

      "...rogue backhoe operator..."

      It was the BBOFH!*

      *: Bastard Backhoe Operator From Hell

      1. Captain DaFt

        Re: Terroirists?!

        "rogue backhoe operator"

        Rather gives me the image of droves of disgruntled backhoe operators, roaming the country, looking for their next cable victim.

        Probably be the next SyFy movie.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Terroirists?!

          Killdozer

          http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071717/

        2. Rick Giles

          Re: Terroirists?! @Captain DaFt

          Close... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071717/

    3. yoganmahew

      Re: Terroirists?!

      Trrurists is auto-running load video ads at this hour of the morning. Grrrrregister...

    4. PNGuinn
      Trollface

      Re: Terroirists?!

      Nah - Just Mikkysoft trying to bork the install to prevent the news getting out that Linux is so much easier to install than their offering to the devil.

      I wonder, post Balmer, who was driving the backhoe?

    5. Francis Boyle Silver badge

      Re: Terroirists?!

      I'm thinking Russian "Subtteraneans" lurking under our streets.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Terroirists?!

      Do they eat at a gourmet restaurant on a winefarm

      1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

        Re: Terroirists?!

        Do they eat at a gourmet restaurant on a winefarm

        No, they're just picky where they dig

    7. Bluto Nash

      Re: Terroirists?!

      We had a site in a relatively remote region of the southern US that routinely went offline at odd times, generally for similar reasons. We referred to it "holding the backhoe races" when it happened.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    the real question

    I wonder what the UK bookies have the odds listed for the final install containing systemd? Pretty safe bet yes if the install ever finishes that is.

  5. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Vic

      rm -rf / is an error on a POSIX compliant system.

      OK, it seems I've gone blind. Where does it say that?

      Vic.

      1. Shoot Them Later

        From the referenced page:

        "if an operand resolves to the root directory, rm shall write a diagnostic message to standard error and do nothing more with such operands"

        Which just goes to show that The Open Group have no sense of humour. Or maybe they do - perhaps they are just trolling people to go an test out if their system has a POSIX-compliant rm. I for one am certainly gullible enough to give it a go. Hold on...

        1. Phil W

          Yeah, if they were going to block "rm -rf /" they could at least have it return something to the shell like "I'm sorry I can't do that Dave".

          For Ubuntu/Debian having it return something like "Super cow powers have prevented this command from running" would be nice :-)

  6. foxyshadis

    It's only frustrating

    if you haven't completely ignored the most useless install the world has ever seen. In some ways it's like DOTA, but stripped off all the fun and team-play. Who gets invested in this?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's 4chan

    On their computer board, telling people to install Gentoo is the solution to every problem.

    1. Snake Silver badge

      Re: It's 4chan

      "On their computer board, telling people to install Gentoo is the solution to every problem."

      Really??

      "I got clap from my last trick"

      "Install Gentoo and call me in the morning"

      Awesome repartee.

  8. Michael Thibault
    Joke

    This article tells you everything you need to know--but it's all between the lines.

  9. Big-nosed Pengie
    Headmaster

    "Install" is a verb. The noun you're looking for is "installation". You're welcome. :-)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Headmaster

      >"Install" is a verb. The noun you're looking for is "installation". You're welcome. :-)

      No, I wanted a verb and so I used one. A "distributed install" is where people do an install whilst being distributed.

  10. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Brian Miller
      Joke

      No, you're both wrong. It's a disturbed installation.

  11. This post has been deleted by its author

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Normal behaviour for Linux engineers

    Take the simple concept of a Linux os and have 47 different flavours of it.

    Argue endlessly which is the best and have a hugely inconsistent array of options so that every one looks different.

    Ensure most drivers don't work very well or preferably don't exist at all.

    Spend more time compiling it and installing it and tweaking it than you do actually using it.

    Ensure you have a smug disposition about you having created an unusable, unique mess of an os build which took far longer to achieve than it should have.

    Decry anone who points out its an unusable mess that is missing key features and many useful apps.

    Charge twice as much for these 'skills'.

    Retire and play with vi.

    1. Michael Thibault
      Thumb Up

      Re: Normal behaviour for Linux engineers

      Oh, A.C., I despair of you being a team player!

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