rm -rf : What does it really do

[Net Llama!]

On 05/03/03 07:49, Joel Hammer wrote:
> I was wondering, while waiting 30 minutes for rm -rf* to clean up a 40 gig
> directory, what was taking so long. I did note that rm never used for than a
> few per cent of cpu cycles during this entire time. But, I was wondering if
> this long delay was due to rm overwriting the old data with 0's.

30 minutes???  What kind of HD is this?  Which filesystem/kernel? 
Either your hardware needs some serious tuning, or soething is very very 
broken on your end.  I can delete a 40GB file in about 7 minutes on a 
very heavily loaded system.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
L. Friedman                       	       netllama at linux-sxs.org
Linux Step-by-step & TyGeMo: 		    http://netllama.ipfox.com

   9:00am  up 55 days,  8:26,  3 users,  load average: 0.25, 0.15, 0.05