recursively removing files with wildcard in linux

If you are a Linux rookie as me, you might expect this to work, as well as I did:
rm -r *.class

Bozinga! this only deletes the *.class under wherever you are, because wildcards are expanded before executing the commands.

here is a non-trivial command that does the seemingly trivial magic you wish:

find /path_to_search -type f -name "*the_patern*" -exec rm {} \

Installing Ubuntu 10.10 on my Thinkpad T60

Just for future reference. Should write a bash script to automate this.

• Ubuntu Screen flickering/flashing problem with ATI x1300/x1400
  

  cat /etc/modprobe.d/radeon-kms.conf 
  options radeon modeset=1  
  reboot

• Install Java
  Turn on "Partner" in repo list
  

  sudo apt-get update  
  sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk

• Install Aptitude
• Install chrome, dropbox, eclipse
• Sync VI configuration, Sync Terminal configuration, Sync .bash_aliases
• Layout Dev, Workspaces, git clone, etc