Linux

When I first installed linux I set up a dualboot because I still had data on windows. A week passes, I get cocky, I customize the grub loader, somehow nuked the windows install in the process because (unbeknownst to me, I was installing a new bootloader on the linux drive) I ran some commands off the stack exchange. When I went to my windows drive the C part was gone-gone, I had documents on that C drive. Said to myslef "I guess I have a free drive now" and never looked back.

Those documents were important, no backups. Time, nerves and money consuming to get them again.

Spending money on a crowdfunded Linux device.

Fuck you fxtec

My payroll company came out with a be version that won't work in Linux. They wouldn't accommodate me and I was too deep into their ecosystem to change companies so I ended up having to buy a Windows license so I could run a virtual machine every time I had to do payroll.

Edit: My mistake was getting too dependent on a company that doesn't care about Linux users.

Not costly in anything but time, but I tried to crossgrade an i386 server to x86_64. Eventually it got broken enough that I restored from a backup and just rebuilt a new server from scratch in a VM to replace it.

I installed Ubuntu back when that was popular, and insisted on having all the graphical bling, like 3d cube that would spin to change desktops. And windows that shook like jello when you moved them.

Of course all this messing around by an amateur did nothing for stability and after 3 or 4 frustrating issues I went back to Windows.

Once I had to buy a new keyboard for all the goddamn terminal typing I had to do

I've been running Linux since 2011, starting with our data recovery and antivirus scanning system at the computer repair shop I was working for at the time.

Even my boss didn't understand why I wanted to install Linux. Keep in mind, this is back when the TDSS/Alureon rootkit was going around on Windows systems.

I explained it like it was, that if our main backup/antivirus system was running the same OS as the infected computers coming in, then it was only a matter of time before our main system got infected.

So, he accepted my advice and let me set everything up. More or less just the bare basics really, smartmontools, gparted, firefox, google earth (just because), and a few other relevant programs to help with our daily tasks.

Then, one day when I was off work, a new employee decided to install some plugin into Firefox to share bookmarks and stuff across different devices..

Somehow, he borked the main tech user account, it wouldn't even login to the user interface anymore :(

I had to spend a few hours, with the skeptical boss over my shoulder, waiting to see if I could get the system back running right again.

And so I did, while learning lots of new things at the same time. When I learned the hotkeys to switch to other terminal sessions, then I figured out how to create a new account, erase the old account, and get logged back in and running.

The customer data backup drive was separate and detached through all that, so customer data was safe the whole time.

The boss almost said fuckit, reinstall Windows, but I was persistent. And that system helped salvage over 200 systems with the TDSS rootkit, which would have almost certainly doomed our backup system if it was running Windows.

I told that new guy to never fuck with my operating system setup or configuration again, at least not before consulting me and getting approval or even assistance first.

When you got a bare minimum of the past 100 customers' data backed up and virus checked, you don't dick around with the main backup system.

So, honestly, I can't think of a single truly costly mistake that Linux has cost me..

As far as that other employee that messed it up for a bit, well I dunno, it wasn't too long after that the boss fired him...

back around 2013 I was working on a school project, did the ol' get out my laptop without putting on my glasses bit, and ran "rm -rf" on the wrong folder because the characters sorta looked similar to my farsighted eyes.

Since I didn't make backups, that was a few weeks of work down the drain.

One time I've lost around 200gb of data, by accidentally removing a folder, instead of its symlink. Didn't have backups either, but it wasn't anything I couldn't get again

Let me count the ways:

• Edited /etc/sudoers with vi instead of visudo.
• The classic rm -fr /
• The typical chown myuser: / -R
• Removed the bootloader dunno why
• Some shenanigans involving dd and the wrong device

I could go on, but my memory tends to erase the painful memories.

Probably trying to share a Stream drive between Linux and Windows. Trying to run games from NTFS just didn't work and resulted in all kinds of weird issues. I was close to giving up on Linux but after I switched to an ext3 partition things just started working :|

I installed some library from sources on my working laptop, and it stopped booting lol. Had to change my laptop for the newer Thinkpad, because you cannot insert into working devices any flash drives to boot from and fix the system. It hasn't cost me anything, but was pretty funny

That is a process fail, not a Linux fail. It wouldn't matter if it was Linux or absolutely anything else.