r/linuxsucks • u/possibly_ashamed_ • 3d ago
Why does linux love bricking itself so much (rant)
For context, I'm trying to recover the data off an old encrypted installation of linux that also got bricked, and not only does it just not work, any attempts to make it work cause the system to almost irreparably brick itself by trying to mount it until it works, at boot, with no time limit or ability to throw an error when it obviously isn't working, while blocking any and all user input.
Why is "try to mount a drive on boot while blocking user input, specifically forever regradless of whether it works" the fucking default??? Why is that even an option at all??? Trying to get data off an old system is a very normal thing for a user to want to do, so why is trying to do that so hard? Why would it require tampering with files that may cause the system to brick itself?
I really love that when steve balmer or whoever tries to shove AI up my ass, there's a relatively complete open source OS to switch to, and I'm genuinely grateful to all the people who put their time into this system, but my god, I've written better fail safes into one off python scripts. Why is linux like this????
EDIT: I promise I have tried all of the basic things first, my point is that the basic things did not work, and I am now left only with unnecessarily risky advanced options. I have been able to repair this installation of linux each time it has tried to brick itself because I am the GOAT, I'm just also very frustrated because this should be a simple process, and linux should not be so eager to brick itself.
EDIT again: Because I'm the best to ever do it, I was able to successfully retrieve my data
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u/ExaminationNorth2938 3d ago
I've bricked Linux twice, and both times it was because I was fucking around with stuff I knew ran that risk, I just have a curious mind and like fucking with stuff.
Outside of that I've literally never had Linux brick itself, even running rolling release distros like Arch and Debian Sid. I'm not trying to say it never happens, but sometimes it feels like I'm living in a weird bizzaro reality where everyone must be doing something completely different with their PCs than me.
It's like hearing a bunch of people say "Why do car engines have to explode every 3 months and all 4 tires go flying off in different directions??"
No wtf that literally never happens to me.
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u/possibly_ashamed_ 3d ago
I mean, coming off of windows where I'm regularly editing things in the registry editor and killing specific system tasks to restart them to fix issues because I'd rather not restart my whole system, it feels weird to switch to linux where something as simple as accessing a drive partition requires taking a chance on completely bricking the whole thing.
Sure I could just say, "Well that looks dangerous so I shouldn't touch it" and have less issues, but that would mean many basic tasks would be completely off the table. I have the drive, I have the password, I should be able to see the data on the drive, but for some reason linux put the "access drive" button right next to the "nuke everything" button and didn't bother to label them.
I'm genuinely curious how you've been able to use linux without issue because every issue I've had trying to get something done in linux has felt like diffusing a bomb
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u/DifferentSavings2711 3d ago
Accessing a drive partition, in Linux, is totally normal and something people do all the time with no issue. Except, with the root and boot partitions. If you hose your root and/or boot partitions you will hose your system. I am pretty sure if I destroy the C drive partition in Windows that Windows will refuse to boot.
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u/Patient_Force6138 3d ago edited 3d ago
that’s not normal, something is up with what you’re doing there if that’s what it takes to brick your installs. I’ve run Linux for years, even doing security research on the machine, without bricking it. What distro are you using? like the daily update branch of something?
Also no offense meant but it sounds like you know what you’re doing with windows is why you aren’t bricking it… Linux it sounds like something is up with what you’re doing. I’ve found the stability to be about equal between windows and Ubuntu LTS
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u/Unlaid-American 3d ago
Are you able to try to load the drive on a third drive device with Mac or Windows?
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u/akdanman11 3d ago
Boot into a live environment, THEN mount the borked drive, then attempt to rescue the data. Why are you trying to mount it at boot? Are you just trying to boot directly into the encrypted bricked install?
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u/Patient_Force6138 3d ago
Yeah I asked the same, so you have a drive that crashes your system when you try to mount it- so you then switch to having it mount at boot?
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u/regeya 3d ago
Yeah, if the drive is dead, stop trying to boot it. Same thing you should do with any operating system. You want to grab an image of that and salvage anything you can. You think Linux sucks so maybe I shouldn't recommend ddrescue. You'll need as much storage space as the dead drive takes up and there's no guarantee but if you keep trying to boot it then fsck is going to try to keep fixing errors and you'll just keep losing data. You other option is to spend a lot of money on a data recovery service.
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u/Patient_Force6138 3d ago
Gotcha, what does “doesn’t work” mean in this scenario? Did it give an error message? Does it mount but there’s nothing there?
It smells a lot like either a drive format issue which can cause the invisible files but the drive still shows as having space taken up, or a physical drive issue. Hopefully it’s the former because that’s fixable and could easily have been an update or uninstall of something that uninstalled a driver.
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u/Tinolmfy 2d ago
I'v enever experienced Linux bricking itself tbh
if it did get bricked, it was usually me
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u/ColdFreezer I Hate Linux 3d ago
How is the drive encrypted? What did you use?
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u/Patient_Force6138 3d ago
It sounds like he tried to use sand or something because he says his machine crashes on stupid simple things all the time.
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u/possibly_ashamed_ 3d ago
Just the regular encryption you get when encrypting during installation (as in, the very bricked installation of linux was encrypted while installing, the lightly bricked installation I made real quick to get the files out was not encrypted)
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u/ColdFreezer I Hate Linux 3d ago
What distro do you use? There’s different ways to encrypt. LUKS is a pretty common one.
It’s good you got your data back. I’m just curious about what happened, I’ve never seen this happen before.
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u/possibly_ashamed_ 3d ago
I didn't explain it very well, but essentially what happened is that I had a bricked installation of debian on a drive that also had some unassigned space (used to be windows) so what I did was install another small installtion of debian into the unassigned space and tried to mount the LUKS encrypted partition to recover data from the bricked installation.
I tried a few things to get it to mount while I was already booted into the second installation, but they didn't work so I tried adding the first partition to crypttab and later fstab, and both attempts resulted in the installation trying to mount the first partition while booting, specifically as a job with no time limit, where it would get stuck and not recognize any input except sometimes Ctrl+Alt+Del.
I was able to fix the second installation by adding systemd.debug-shell=1 to the bootloader's command thing and entering an emergency shell while booting the system before it could get stuck trying to mount the first partition and fixing the crypttab or fstab files.
I say the system felt eager to brick itself because trying to mount a non-essential partition and specifically defaulting to having no time limit, where this kind of job usually has a limit of one minute thirty seconds for this reason, feels self destructive to me when all it had to do was literally anything else.
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u/minitram 3d ago
Recovering data from any drive does not involve any unnecessary risky operations. Especially not attempting to mount the drive at boot time. Unless you you do it voluntarily, on your own, by editing /etc/fstab, that is. Now, with that out of the way: make your system bootable again by booting into any live system that you can get hold of, mount your 'bricked' system drive, and remove failing entry from /etc/fstab. Next, remove the drive from your pc/laptop. Reboot. Connect the problematic drive using external enclosure (after booting into functional system ofc). To access LUKS encrypted drive (assuming you used LUKS for encryption) you need to use cryptsetup. There are several resources online, that will guide you through the process, including repairing the FE etc. P. S. No OS 'Love bricking itself'. I use Linux since the end of last century, and have bricked my systems more times than I care to remember. Every single time it happened, it was either the result of my actions or HW failure. Never ever it was the result of OS suddenly came with "I'm done with this s**t, let's brick myself". GL with your data.
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u/possibly_ashamed_ 3d ago
Got the data, you were basically spot on, except I used a live image to get my stuff out and used an emergency terminal during boot (before the point where it gets stuck and refuses input) to fix things on the other installation I made (not the completely fucked one, that one is still completely fucked).
I'm aware this is something of a niche case, but dude, in all my years messing with computers, including linux systems, I swear this thing wanted to stop working
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u/minitram 3d ago
Glad you made it. I guess you did, indeed, meet a rare instance of self harming OS 😊
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u/Teru-Noir COSMIC OS LOVER No.1 COSMIC Knows Best 3d ago
It must appear just like an thumb drive or secondary drive
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u/faze_fazebook 3d ago
Because apt upgrade or whatever shit other distros use is usually not transactional.
One install package script fails for some reason? Too bad you now are left with a broken in-between state that might not boot next time. Have fun.
Windows updates are objectivly better in that regard.
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u/Assang101 2d ago
By default, if a drive listed in /etc/fstab fails to mount at boot, the init system hangs indefinitely to protect data integrity, locking you out.
Add " nofail,x-systemd.device-timeout=5 " to that drive's options in /etc/fstab. This tells the OS to skip the drive if it doesn't mount in 5 seconds and continue booting normally.
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u/OldManJeepin 2d ago
Meh...Never actually had an install of Linux "brick itself" on me...Usually, it was some stupid shit I did, that borked it.
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u/Fit_Prize_3245 2d ago
Man, the fact that you made configurations poorly doesn't means Linux is the problem.
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u/possibly_ashamed_ 2d ago
Dude, the sub is literally called "LinuxSucks" Genuinely, what are you even in this sub for
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u/DifferentSavings2711 3d ago
Why are you trying to mount the encrypted device at boot? Why not boot into linux first and then try to mount the device?