Homebrew wants me to delete /usr/local/lib

homebrew

From the Homebrew installation page :

We recommend you delete /usr/local/include and /usr/local/lib

But my /usr/local/lib contains the following files:

$ ls /usr/local/lib
charset.alias                   libgettextsrc.la
gettext                         libgpg-error.0.dylib
libasprintf.0.0.0.dylib         libgpg-error.dylib
libasprintf.0.dylib             libgpg-error.la
libasprintf.dylib               libiconv.2.dylib
libasprintf.la                  libiconv.dylib
libassuan.0.dylib               libiconv.la
libassuan.dylib                 libintl.8.0.2.dylib
libassuan.la                    libintl.8.dylib
libcharset.1.dylib              libintl.dylib
libcharset.dylib                libintl.la
libcharset.la                   libksba.8.9.6.dylib
libgcrypt.11.6.0.dylib          libksba.8.dylib
libgcrypt.11.dylib              libksba.dylib
libgcrypt.dylib                 libksba.la
libgcrypt.la                    libpth.20.0.27.dylib
libgettextlib-0.17.dylib        libpth.20.dylib
libgettextlib.dylib             libpth.dylib
libgettextlib.la                libpth.la
libgettextpo.0.4.0.dylib        libusb-0.1.4.dylib
libgettextpo.0.dylib            libusb-1.0.0.dylib
libgettextpo.dylib              libusb-1.0.dylib
libgettextpo.la                 libusb-1.0.la
libgettextsrc-0.17.dylib        libusb.dylib
libgettextsrc.dylib             libusb.la

What are these files for? Is it safe to delete these files?

Best Answer

These look like most of the (recursive) dependencies of GnuPG 2.x (except those that are likely included with the OS or the development tools: zlib bzip2, perl, curl, openssl, autoconf, automake, libtool, etc.).

Here is a rough overview of the structure of those dependencies:

  • libiconv: libcharset, libiconv
  • gettext: gettext, libasprintf, libgettextlib, libgettextpo, libgettextsrc, libintl
  • gpg-agent
    • libassuan: libassuan
      • pth: libpth
      • libgpg-error: libgpg-error
    • libksba: libksba
    • libgcrypt: libgcrypt
  • libusb-compat: libusb (0.1.4)
    • libusb: libusb (1.0.0)

I wonder if maybe they are from installable packages of the macgpg2 project (it even includes a charset.alias its iconv package).

Besides /usr/local, these packages also write to these locations:

  • /Applications/start-gpg-agent.app/
  • /Library/LaunchAgents/com.sourceforge.macgpg2.gpg-agent.plist
  • /private/etc/paths.d/MacGPG2

Note: I only scanned through the Info.plist files and the BOMs from the packages, there may be other files elsewhere. Pacifist might be useful if you want to try to go through your /Library/Receipts/ entries to try to find all the files it might have installed.

If these all came from some installation of GnuPG, and you no longer need it (Homebrew only seems to have GnuPG 1.x, otherwise you could rebuild it yourself), then it is probably safe to delete the files. Though I would start /usr/local/ from scratch instead of just clearing lib and include (probably by mv /usr/local /usr/local.old like geekosaur mentioned).

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