Error when trying to “brew link autoconf”

Question

When I try to "brew link autoconf" in the terminal I keep getting this error.

Error: Could not symlink file: /usr/local/Cellar/autoconf/2.69/share/emacs/site-lisp /usr/local/share/emacs is not writable. You should change its permissions.

Anyone have any ideas on how to fix this? Thanks!

Answer 1

You need to make sure that all the files and folders in /usr/local are writable by you. You can do this by typing the following command

chown -R yourusername /usr/local
chmod -R u+w /usr/local

You may have to use sudo for those commands to work.

After you do this, try linking again.

Answer 2

(sudo) chown -R yourusername /usr/local

Answer 3

I had to run

chmod -R u+w /usr/local
brew link --overwrite autoconf
brew install htop

Answer 4

I tried under /usr/local/share/emacs/

sudo chmod 777 site-lisp

and then

brew link autoconf

and problem solve!

mac@Anna_mac : /usr/local/share/emacs : brew link autoconf Linking /usr/local/Cellar/autoconf/2.69... 22 symlinks created

Answer 5

I had to run the following commands

chown -R yourusername /usr/local
chmod -R u+w /usr/local
brew link --overwrite autoconf

Answer 6

You just need to change brew owned by root.

then you can use below command.

sudo brew link xxxx

Quote from github, this is not a bug, it is designed:

jacknagel commented on 4 Feb 2012

brew install will not work with root privileges unless brew itself is owned by root. @jacknagel Collaborator jacknagel commented on 4 Feb 2012

(this is by design.)