I want to wipe all the data from a partition so it can't be recovered. What is the best way to that from the command line?

The dd command is the canonical method:
There is also the more thorough shred command, which attempts to prevent forensic tools from getting results.

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There are very few situations that have a "best" for any significant time.
This one depends on who you are trying to hide from - a mug user, your girlfriend, the NSA, ...

You can use dd, (inputting /dev/zero), shred, or wipe - see their respective websites/man pages.

What bs=1M mean?

man dd will tell you what you need to know.

https://linoxide.com/linux-command/c...pe-disk-linux/

dod wipe it.. twice if you have two.

@OP, just in case you're wondering what "dod" means, it mean the US Department of Defence "5220.22-M Data Wipe method".

https://www.lifewire.com/dod-5220-22-m-2625856

Let me add that you don’t need this option, but it will probably make the task faster.

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Hi,

This can help you, and you can also get more informative posts related to System Administration:

https://vlinux-freak.blogspot.com/20...y-so-that.html

the answer depends on the type of that hardware/device too (which is unknown).

Why? If you ofended a country's intellegence services then you've probably leaked too much already if hard-drive cleaning is something you need to use (hint, encryption).
For just giving away a hard drive nobody can recover overwritten information from a modern hard drive. My source? Try to find somebody willing to do it, even for the multiple-thousand dollars which data recovery companies charge..

before disposing hard drives at work, I run You may not want to do 10 zero passes on a drive that you will continue to use especially if it is a SSD. Try 2 or 3 passes.

what are you rambling on about? I am not the one wanting to know how to wipe a dive for one. the other, using dod wipe, if this government came up with it to keep its secrets safe so its own people and others cannot find out about them, then why cannot its own people use the same method to keep there secrets away from others and the country that has secrets that it does not want its own people to know, so badly does this very country does not want its own people to know theses secrets it developed a method called department of defense wipe, to clean the hard drive well enough to keep these secrets from its own people to not find out about?

why, what have they done that is so bad it does not want its own people to know about it?

the DOD wipe is a relic from the past and just serves to make the drive more worn.
Look up data recovery from overwritten files and see how many people claim to be able to do it with modern drives. I'll give you a clue: it's less than one.
As for being allowed to use the wipe that the government recomended last century -- you're welcome to do so but a better way of doing things would be to encrypt the data so you don't need to do that. If you have to ask about wiping so that the NSA can't read a drive then you're likely too stupid not to have given the game away in some other manner and should not be looking to resell something which could get you or other people imprrisoned or worse if you used the wrong commandline parameters -- there's a reason people use things like thermite to destry drives.
"So, I want to sell this hard drive on Craigslist for $10 but, the thing is, the NSA want some of the data on it...". Do you not see the farce in that?

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