Here’s a rule I learned the hard way a few decades ago:

• If you type “rm”, take you hands off the keyboard and take one deliberate breath before continuing your command.
• If you then type “-r”, do it again.
• If you then type “-f” do it again.
• In all cases, re-read what you wrote before hitting ENTER.

Tipps to prevent future accidents:

• Set up BTRFS snapshots with Timeshift or Snapper. Switching to BTRFS is worth it for snapshots alone.
• Do regular backups on a device that can not be reached by rm: vorta local on external hdd that you connect once a week OR vorta/borg2 to a NAS/Server that does BTRFS snapshots itself OR Nextcloud to sync to a server that has a trashbin OR git to a server. Just remember that Nextcloud and git are unencrypted, so the server has to be secure and trustworthy. Vorta and borg2 can be set up with encryption.

Mistakes are unpreventable due to our error-prone brains, but it is a choice to repeat them.

You’re just the latest member of a long and storied fraternity of the best worst operating system architecture.

https://web.mit.edu/~simsong/www/ugh.pdf

One of us…

I’m a complete moron,

You are not,
Every person learning with the hardway isnt a moron,

You have to do, to really learn,

I should’ve had that backed up

Absolutely! IT’s time to check out Stow now. With this you can easily manage your configuration and dotfiles (and all other data) in a single location.

https://venthur.de/2021-12-19-managing-dotfiles-with-stow.html

I should have had backups of important files in my home directory

Lessons learned the hard way

I should’ve […] used trash

For those who don’t know: trash-cli

if your session is still running you can use env to help reconstruct it

But… why?

Can you say why were you trying to rm -r your .cache anyway? Also RIP.

Reason’s I never use auto-complete in the terminal. Sadly, that’s sometimes not enough.