> Now if you really want to screw over your machine, the classic bash fork bomb is `:(){ :|:& };:`
Actually, you're wrong. At least on a mac (IIRC) it caps the process number so fork bombs just fill the console with errors. I'm sure you can get around it but that kind of defeats its simplicity.
EDIT: I mean, don't get me wrong, it still really bogs your computer down, but you can still kill the parent bash process in a few seconds.
I don't know about linux (and I really should in this case as it's my 'field'), but at least on mac, you can restrict the number of child processes a process can spawn with `ulimit -u`:
Actually, you're wrong. At least on a mac (IIRC) it caps the process number so fork bombs just fill the console with errors. I'm sure you can get around it but that kind of defeats its simplicity.
EDIT: I mean, don't get me wrong, it still really bogs your computer down, but you can still kill the parent bash process in a few seconds.