Answer My Searches

Here’s the story on why I had an undeletable file and how I finally deleted it:

I wrote a short Python script that had matplotlib as a library. I go to run the script and:

chiefinnovator@MAIN1:~$ python /home/chiefinnovator/stock_market_prediction/create_data_file.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/chiefinnovator/stock_market_prediction/create_data_file.py", line10, in ?
from matplotlib.finance import quotes_historical_yahoo
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/matplotlib/__init__.py", line 733, in ? rcParams = rc_params()
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/matplotlib/__init__.py", line 689, in rc_params
for line in file(fname):
IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/etc/matplotlibrc'

Hmm, I don’t know what this file is or why I was denied from it but let’s go ahead and fix that:
chiefinnovator@MAIN1:~$ sudo chown -v chiefinnovator "/etc/matplotlibrc"
Password:
chown: changing ownership of `/etc/matplotlibrc': Operation not permitted
failed to change ownership of `/etc/matplotlibrc' to chiefinnovator

That’s certainly odd. I browse over to the file in Nautilus by running:
gksudo nautilus
and I see that it’s a 0 byte file owned by root (allegedly) and has no permissions.
So I figure I’ll go ahead and delete it:

chiefinnovator@MAIN1:~$ sudo rm -v /etc/matplotlibrc
rm: remove write-protected weird file `/etc/matplotlibrc'? y
rm: cannot remove `/etc/matplotlibrc': Operation not permitted
And same message with “sudo rm -f /etc/matplotlibrc”.

Ok, this is all very strange, and rm called my file “weird”! Time to start searching. This link provides these two ideas:

chiefinnovator@MAIN1:~$ fuser -u /etc/matplotlibrc
chiefinnovator@MAIN1:~$ fuser -ku /etc/matplotlibrc
and this idea:
chiefinnovator@MAIN1:~$ sudo debugfs debugfs 1.38 (30-Jun-2005)
debugfs: open -w /dev/hda3
debugfs: rm /etc/matplotlibrc
rm: File not found by ext2_lookup while trying to resolve filename
debugfs: q


Still nothing works. Finally as a last resort I try restarting the computer. I come back into a terminal try the simple:
chiefinnovator@MAIN1:~$ sudo rm -fv /etc/matplotlibrc
Password:
chiefinnovator@MAIN1:~$
And it works!
so I go ahead and recreate the file so that some other thing hopefully doesn’t try to create it again in an un-deleteable way.
chiefinnovator@MAIN1:~$ sudo touch /etc/matplotlibrc

And now everything works! The moral of the story is to try restarting your computer first! Disclaimer: I have no idea what I’m doing, following these steps may harm you in some way.

Finally my search terms:

1. “chown: changing ownership of *: Operation not permitted”
2. chown: changing ownership of `/etc/matplotlibrc’: Operation not
3. the owner could not be changed
4. “the owner could not be changed”
5. sudo + “operation not permitted”
6. sudo “operation not permitted” site:http://www.ubuntuforums.org/

[tags]ubuntu,sudo,rm,sudo rm,delete,chown,matplotlibrc,matplotlib,ownership,touch,debugfs,fuser,gksudo,nautilis,nautilus[/tags]