What are the implications of deleting all content of /usr/local? After many days trying to solve a problem related to the installation of the R package 'rstan' I came to a possible solution that requires &quot;Delete all of /usr/local/. Reinstall all developer software again from scratch.&quot;
The image attached shows the top level contents of my /usr/local/ directory. Based on this info, can anyone please give me some notion of the implications of deleting all?
Thank you for any help!
The main issue here is that you use Homebrew.
Homebrew puts its files in /usr/local/ so deleting /usr/local will remove Homebrew
So if you are prepared to reinstall Homebrew then no real issue.
However if you are not installing R and rstan via Homebrew then you will get the same issue again. If you can install them via Homebrew than that is a solution.
Basically if you use Homebrew then do not install other software in /usr/local (e.g. via normal Unix make install) as they confuse each other.
If you have to use software that has to use its own installer to end up in /usr/local then I would suggest another package manager e/g/ Macports or Fink or build your software setting the install directory to be something other than /usr/local