Unable to 'brew link' imagemagick

Question

I'm trying to install Imagemagick via brew, and I get this message upon installation:

    Warning: imagemagick-6.8.6-3 already installed, it's just not linked

When I attempt to link it via brew link, I get this:

    brew link imagemagick
    Warning: Could not link imagemagick. Unlinking...
    Linking /usr/local/Cellar/imagemagick/6.8.6-3... 
    Error: File exists - /usr/local/etc

Ideas?? I've tried:

    'brew link -f imagemagick' 

without luck (I get the same error message as above). It was suggested here: Brew linking with ImageMagick

According to brew update, I'm up to date. Brew doctor returns this:

    Warning: You have MacPorts or Fink installed:
    /Users/user_name/.rvm/bin/port, /opt/local/bin/port

    This can cause trouble. You don't have to uninstall them, but you may want to
    temporarily move them out of the way, e.g.

    sudo mv /opt/local ~/macports

   Warning: You have unlinked kegs in your Cellar
   Leaving kegs unlinked can lead to build-trouble and cause brews that depend on
   those kegs to fail to run properly once built. Run `brew link` on these:

   imagemagick

Answer 1

You need to remove the imagemagick file in /usr/local/etc so that brew can write a new one there.

The old file was placed there by something else than brew. Possibly another package manager.

UPDATE 2015.03.07: as Chords indicated in a comment above it may be necessary to remove the folder entirely. (Although setting the correct permissions and groups may be an equivalent measure.)