In A UEFI World, “rm -rf /” Can Brick Your System
This New Linux Kernel Update Can Damage Your Laptop Display
There was also a particular optical drive that would brick if installing from a particular I believe Red Hat Linux installation cd, though I can’t find a source for this (personal experience with 2 drives - warning was in manual). -This was ~20 years ago.
When was it ever recommended?
There’s absolutely no reason to do this, ever.
To remove the French language from your system ofc (
rm -fr /)