"config" scripts exist outside your system or Homebrew directory

Question

Ran "brew doctor" and got some errors. I managed to fix the path issue by following the advice at this link: How to modify PATH for Homebrew?.

However, completely lost with what to do with the following error:

Warning: "config" scripts exist outside your system or Homebrew directories.
`./configure` scripts often look for *-config scripts to determine if
software packages are installed, and what additional flags to use when
compiling and linking.

Having additional scripts in your path can confuse software installed via
Homebrew if the config script overrides a system or Homebrew provided
script of the same name. We found the following "config" scripts:

/opt/sm/pkg/active/bin/curl-config
/opt/sm/pkg/active/bin/ncurses5-config
/opt/sm/pkg/active/bin/ncursesw5-config
/opt/sm/pkg/active/bin/pkg-config
/opt/sm/pkg/active/bin/xml2-config
/opt/sm/pkg/active/bin/xslt-config

Noob. Running OSX. Appreciate any assistance from wiser Jedis...

Answer 1

If you see this message it means you have packages installed without using homebrew. If these packages are only installed outside homebrew their config scripts should not interfere with homebrew and you don't have to worry. There might be a problem if you have, for example curl, installed in homebrew and in another packages manager or manually.

If you need these softwares you should remove them and reinstall them in homebrew otherwise you can leave them in /opt or uninstall them.