[FIXED] When installing Laravel I got an error: "./composer.json is not writable."

Issue

This is the command I run:

composer global require "laravel/installer"

and this is the text and error I got after that:

Changed current directory to /home/dimitar/.composer
./composer.json is not writable.

I'm running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and PHP 7 and Composer version 1.3.0 and running this command from my home folder.

Solution

Check the owner of composer.json.

ls -lh ~/.composer/composer.json

If it's 'root', run:

sudo chown -R yourusername:yourusername ~/.composer/composer.json

While in the .composer folder, check the 'cache' folder owner. If it's 'root', re-run above command but switch composer.json to the cache. Otherwise, you may end up with a 'Cannot create cache directory' warning.

Answered By - PelleLV

Answer Checked By - Robin (PHPFixing Admin)