Homebrew: Won't link git on Mountain Lion

Question

Have installed Homebrew and have downloaded git, but it won't link. Get this error message:

Consider amending your PATH so that /usr/local/bin
occurs before /usr/bin in your PATH.
Warning: You have a non-Homebrew 'pkg-config' in your PATH:
  /opt/sm/pkg/active/bin/pkg-config

`./configure` may have problems finding brew-installed packages using
this other pkg-config.
unknown7cd1c3e98b07:~ pdenlinger$ brew install git
Error: git-1.8.0 already installed, it's just not linked
unknown7cd1c3e98b07:~ pdenlinger$ brew link git
Linking /usr/local/Cellar/git/1.8.0... Warning: Could not link git. Unlinking...

Error: Could not symlink file: /usr/local/Cellar/git/1.8.0/bin/gitk
Target /usr/local/bin/gitk already exists. You may need to delete it.
To force the link and delete this file, do:
  brew link --overwrite formula_name

To list all files that would be deleted:
  brew link --overwrite --dry-run formula_name
unknown7cd1c3e98b07:~ pdenlinger$ brew link git

What can I do to fix this?

Response from vi command:

sudo vi /etc/paths     /usr/local/bin  /usr/local/sbin   /usr/bin   /bin   /usr/sbin   /sbin
7 files to edit


E325: ATTENTION
Found a swap file by the name "/etc/.paths.swp"
          owned by: root   dated: Thu Nov 22 09:10:09 2012
         file name: /private/etc/paths
          modified: no
         user name: root   host name: unknown7cd1c3e98b07.att.net
        process ID: 98069 (still running)
While opening file "/etc/paths"
             dated: Tue Aug 21 15:44:10 2012

(1) Another program may be editing the same file.
    If this is the case, be careful not to end up with two
    different instances of the same file when making changes.
    Quit, or continue with caution.

(2) An edit session for this file crashed.
    If this is the case, use ":recover" or "vim -r /etc/paths"
    to recover the changes (see ":help recovery").
    If you did this already, delete the swap file "/etc/.paths.swp"
    to avoid this message.

Swap file "/etc/.paths.swp" already exists!
[O]pen Read-Only, (E)dit anyway, (R)ecover, (Q)uit, (A)bort:

[Possible duplicate to this question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10343834/homebrew-wants-me-to-amend-my-path-no-clue-how) — avelis, Jul 11 '13 at 08:25

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:43

5

Possible duplicate of this question ... The solution to this was

open your /etc/paths file, put /usr/local/bin on top of /usr/bin

$ sudo vi /etc/paths
/usr/local/bin
/usr/local/sbin
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin

edited May 23 '17 at 11:43

Community

1
1

answered Nov 22 '12 at 17:07

toxicate20

5,270
3
26
38

1

Entered the command and got this response. Since it is too long to fit here, have added it above in the body of the message. – pdenlinger Nov 22 '12 at 17:10
what? it return null? cant imagine that. nevertheless, you could also just do this export PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:~/bin:$PATH" which does the same thing – toxicate20 Nov 22 '12 at 17:13

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 14 '12 at 21:45

-1

I was getting a "Permission denied" error so I edited the /etc/paths file using

$ sudo nano /etc/paths

answered Dec 14 '12 at 21:45

fjxx

945
10
20

Homebrew: Won't link git on Mountain Lion

2 Answers2