New user with Brew

[woodbine]

I have a MacMini 2018 and wanted to install SmartMonTools.
I thought I had installed Brew already, but not SmartMonTools. So went ahead and entered "brew install smartmontools"
Some activity went by, then an error message...
"The `brew link` step did not complete successfully
The formula built, but is not symlinked into /usr/local
Could not symlink share/doc/smartmontools/AUTHORS
Target /usr/local/share/doc/smartmontools/AUTHORS
already exists. You may want to remove it:
rm '/usr/local/share/doc/smartmontools/AUTHORS'"
So I thought this meant smartmoxntools was already present. But entering command "smartctl -a disk0 " gets the reply smartctl not found.
I then thought, OK uninstall brew....brew uninstall
Which gives this message, after a bit of text activity
Error: Invalid usage: This command requires at least 1 installed formula or installed cask argument.

I have no idea what to do next, not a terminal expert!

 

[barbu]

Ok so a few things here. First, be careful and take your time. Running into one small problems should not lead to panic and trying to uninstall everything. Second, be careful and take your time. The shell is not to be trifled with. Third, as you’ll learn if you keep at it with the shell, just because running “smartctl“ failed, it does not necessarily mean it is not present on your system, it just means it’s not in your path.

“Brew uninstall” failed because that command is for removing something that brew installed. As the error states, you need another argument. For example, “brew uninstall smartmontools”.

As for the original error, the script suggested a fix. Try running (copy n paste) the rm command and then retry the brew install command.