[arch-general] 2 recommendations needed for installing ArchLinux

[Kevin Chadwick]

On Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:08:46 +0100
Thomas Bächler wrote:

> Generally, running 'rm' on a file means it's gone. It's the
> specification of 'rm'.

Sort of, more so on SSDs but it's just harder to reconstruct because
SSDs writes are spread out as sectors get worn out much quicker. For
speed, /bin/rm just removes the reference in the partition table which
is why it takes ages to write but a second to delete, leaving the data
and allowing it to be overwritten later which could be in a second or
possibly never. It is less likely to be overwritten on unix with
partitions and a dedicated swap rather than on windows with a growing
pagefile. The only rm command that makes the data gone that I know of
is OpenBSDs rm with option -P, which overwrites 3 times.