Argument list too long

wrong, do not pipe tjhe output of ls, the command is not intended to be used that way and is totally unsafe.

when there's too much files you do:

 for filename in *; do
     rm "$filename:
 done

this is a shell construct and it will handle large lists correctly, and is also safe.

for filename in *; do
    rm "$filename":
done

(forgot a quote)

crap! wrong again, this is it:

for filename in *; do
    rm "$filename"
done

If GNU Parallel http://www.gnu.org/software/parallel/ is installed:

ls | parallel -X rm

This will run fewer rm's and can be faster if you remove a lot of files. GNU Parallel is safe for filenames not containing newline (and with -0 it is even safe for those).

Watch the intro video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v … paiGYxkSuQ