I think there were a few other changes indirectly inspired by what had transpired, but admittedly I can’t remember most of them. I think Debian also modified apt.
I also think I remember immutable distros taking off just after this.
Pop_OS put in a patch that required you to create a file /etc/apt/break-my-system and Debian added a flag instead.
My point was if someone is going to blindly follow an instruction to type that, they’re just as likely to blindly follow an instruction to touch /etc/apt/break-my-system or an instruction to add --allow-remove-essential
The Gnome software GUI, what the average user would use, didn’t allow it.
KDE realized Discover would have allowed it (after a warning), so that was fixed
I think the point of both is that even if he skipped all the text explaining he’s about to break the system, he would have still have had to type the words explaining them, and therefore hopefully think about the words he’s typing. It might not protect against copy-paste as effectively, but there’s a higher chance he’d read what he’d copied than a wall of text. Not 100% effective, but it’s probably going to catch more users than “do as I say”, where he still thought he was installing Steam, so it’s good those changes were made.
But yes, it won’t catch everyone like Linus because they either won’t think about it or they will copy-paste without reading. Ultimately an immutable distro might be best for him. Then again he might still find a way to break it somehow.
The GUI wouldn’t let him break it, so he tried the command line.
The command line required him to type, with punctuation “Yes, do as I say!” after a big warning.
If an average user will do that, the “fix” of needing to create a file before being able to type “Yes, do as I say!” isn’t going to change anything
I think there were a few other changes indirectly inspired by what had transpired, but admittedly I can’t remember most of them. I think Debian also modified apt.
I also think I remember immutable distros taking off just after this.
Pop_OS put in a patch that required you to create a file /etc/apt/break-my-system and Debian added a flag instead.
My point was if someone is going to blindly follow an instruction to type that, they’re just as likely to blindly follow an instruction to
touch /etc/apt/break-my-systemor an instruction to add--allow-remove-essentialThe Gnome software GUI, what the average user would use, didn’t allow it.
KDE realized Discover would have allowed it (after a warning), so that was fixed
I think the point of both is that even if he skipped all the text explaining he’s about to break the system, he would have still have had to type the words explaining them, and therefore hopefully think about the words he’s typing. It might not protect against copy-paste as effectively, but there’s a higher chance he’d read what he’d copied than a wall of text. Not 100% effective, but it’s probably going to catch more users than “do as I say”, where he still thought he was installing Steam, so it’s good those changes were made.
But yes, it won’t catch everyone like Linus because they either won’t think about it or they will copy-paste without reading. Ultimately an immutable distro might be best for him. Then again he might still find a way to break it somehow.