How to delete a read-only directory in Rasbian Bookworm release.

[pipuppy]

Hi,

I recently came back to using my raspi 400 after a break of almost a year. I also re-flashed the SD card to take advantage of the newer Bookworm release of raspbian and for the most part everything works as I remeber except for the "rm" trminal command.

I would like to remove an unwanted "snap" directory which remained after removal of the snap-store package.

I Googled for information on how to remove an unwanted directory in Debian linux and the pages I have read describe variants of the rm command which I have been trying.

I open a terminal window, navigate to the "/" directory and then attempt to remove the unwanted "snap" directory using

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sudo rm -r snap

Each time I try to delete the unwanted directory I get the following error message which keeps repeating for every file in the directory and sub directories.

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rm: cannot remove 'snap/core22/867/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libzstd.so.1.4.8': Read-only file system

I had a go at changing file permissions with...

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sudo chmod +rwx snap

and then

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sudo rm -r snap

and other variations of the rm command but the directory refuses to delete.

I could just re-flash but thats the cowards way out and I wont learn anything from my mistakes

After a year away from using terminal commands I have become very rusty and suspect I am missing something here and would appreciate some pointers as to which terminal command I should be using to delete an unwanted directory



Pipuppy

[B.Goode]

Hi,

I recently came back to using my raspi 400 after a break of almost a year. I also re-flashed the SD card to take advantage of the newer Bookworm release of raspbian and for the most part everything works as I remeber except for the "rm" trminal command.

I would like to remove an unwanted "snap" directory which remained after removal of the snap-store package.

I Googled for information on how to remove an unwanted directory in Debian linux and the pages I have read describe variants of the rm command which I have been trying.

I open a terminal window, navigate to the "/" directory and then attempt to remove the unwanted "snap" directory using

Code: Select all

sudo rm -r snap

Each time I try to delete the unwanted directory I get the following error message which keeps repeating for every file in the directory and sub directories.

Code: Select all

rm: cannot remove 'snap/core22/867/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libzstd.so.1.4.8': Read-only file system

I had a go at changing file permissions with...

Code: Select all

sudo chmod +rwx snap

and then

Code: Select all

sudo rm -r snap

and other variations of the rm command but the directory refuses to delete.

I could just re-flash but thats the cowards way out and I wont learn anything from my mistakes

After a year away from using terminal commands I have become very rusty and suspect I am missing something here and would appreciate some pointers as to which terminal command I should be using to delete an unwanted directory



Pipuppy

If this were my issue to resolve I would be investigating why the Operating System thinks it has a Read-Only root filesystem. (This is a different level of protection to having a read-only file or a read-only directory.)

I don't think that is the standard behaviour/configuration of RasPiOS Bookworm.


Are you running some other 'rasbian' OS, or have you made some change subsequent to flashing it to the microSD card?

[neilgl]

Maybe

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rm -rf snap

[kerry_s]

navigate to the "/" directory

you sure you removed, snaps are mounted.


do a double check.

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apt search ^snap | grep installed

clean

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sudo apt -y autoremove && sudo apt -y clean && sudo apt -y purge ?config-files

[cleverca22]

If this were my issue to resolve I would be investigating why the Operating System thinks it has a Read-Only root filesystem. (This is a different level of protection to having a read-only file or a read-only directory.)

but is it even the root that is read-only?

snaps work by mounting something, so it may actually be a snap that is mounted read-only
in that case, the answer is to just umount it, or tell snapd to stop doing whatever its doing, or uninstall snap

[B.Goode]

If this were my issue to resolve I would be investigating why the Operating System thinks it has a Read-Only root filesystem. (This is a different level of protection to having a read-only file or a read-only directory.)

but is it even the root that is read-only?

I am content for the user to find that is not the case.


My response was based on the disparity between the topic Title: How to delete a read-only directory, and the error
reported in the message text: rm: cannot remove 'snap/core22/867/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libzstd.so.1.4.8': Read-only file system


That seemed worth drawing attention to for investigation. It is good that other volunteers can provide more focussed advice.

[pipuppy]

Hi again,

First of all my thanks to all of you for taking the time to respond to my request for help.

I am pleased to report that following the advice of kerry_s the problem has now been resolved.

kerry_ advised...

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apt search ^snap | grep installed

and...

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sudo apt -y autoremove && sudo apt -y clean && sudo apt -y purge ?config-files

I dont fully understand exactly where I went wrong but it is now clear that some residue of the snap store was still present after using apt-get remove snap-store command.

After reading this webpage...

https://linuxsimply.com/linux-basics/pa ... ove-purge/

I strongly suspect that I had only removed the snap-store package and possibly left behind snapd, the snap-core or both and that was preventing the unwanted directory from being attacked.

Because the entry in the applications menu had been removed I had wrongly assumed that the snap-store bundle had been fully removed

After following kerry_s instructions the problem is now resolved and I will now know what to look for if I run into this problem again in the future so, my thanks to kerry_s for pointing me in the right direction.

Regards,

pipuppy