Ubuntu: cannot remove .bitcoin directory

[AntiGoogle]

Please help. I installed bitcoin just to look at what it was like, because a friend had been telling me about it. Then I decided to remove it. I deleted all files in the directory created by tar and the directory itself. Then I checked my computer and found a hidden bitcoin directory in the /home/username directory. I tried to empty it and to delete it but it went into hidding instead:

alan@alan:~$ cd .bitcoin/
alan@alan:~/.bitcoin$ rm -rf *
alan@alan:~/.bitcoin$ ls
alan@alan:~/.bitcoin$ sudo ls
alan@alan:~/.bitcoin$ cd ..
alan@alan:~$ rmdir .bitcoin
rmdir: failed to remove `.bitcoin': Directory not empty
alan@alan:~$ sudo rmdir .bitcoin
rmdir: failed to remove `.bitcoin': Directory not empty
alan@alan:~$ cd .bitcoin
alan@alan:~/.bitcoin$ ls
alan@alan:~/.bitcoin$ sudo ls
alan@alan:~/.bitcoin$ sudo rm -rf *
alan@alan:~/.bitcoin$ cd ..
alan@alan:~$ sudo rmdir .bitcoin
rmdir: failed to remove `.bitcoin': Directory not empty
alan@alan:~$ sudo chmod -R 777 .bitcoin
alan@alan:~$ cd .bitcoin/
alan@alan:~/.bitcoin$ ls
alan@alan:~/.bitcoin$ sudo rm -rf *
alan@alan:~/.bitcoin$ cd ..
alan@alan:~$ sudo rmdir ./bitcoin
rmdir: failed to remove `./bitcoin': No such file or directory
alan@alan:~$ sudo ls .bit*
alan@alan:~$ mkdir .bitcoin
mkdir: cannot create directory `.bitcoin': File exists
alan@alan:~$ sudo ls .bitcoin
alan@alan:~$ cd .bitcoin
alan@alan:~/.bitcoin$

How do I remove it please?

AG

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[Bitsky]

Switch to root and when in .bitcoin, do a "cd .." and then "rm -rf .bitcoin"
The directory most likely contains some hidden files, which are not shown with just a "ls"; do a "ls -la" instead.

[Bert]

what Bitsky or.
sudo rm -fr .bircoin/.??*
sudo rmdir .bitcoin

The reason I got into the habit of using .??* instead of .* is that some very old and buggy flavours of UNIX would recurse backwards upon seeing the .. folder. And lets just say that something nasty would happen.

[AntiGoogle]

Thank you. It worked  .

There was a file called .lock in the .bitcoin directory. It kept being recreated:
alan@alan:~/.bitcoin$ sudo rm -f .lock
alan@alan:~/.bitcoin$ sudo rm -f .lock
alan@alan:~/.bitcoin$ sudo rm -f .lock
alan@alan:~/.bitcoin$ sudo rm -f .lock
etc... Never a "file not found".

The solution was to send all commands in one line:
alan@alan:~/.bitcoin$ sudo rm -f .lock;cd ..;sudo rmdir .bitcoin
This deleted the .bitcoin directory before it could re-create its .lock file

Now what is the process which kept re-creating .lock? Would this still be running on my machine somewhere?

AG

[Bitsky]

With "lsof .lock" you could check what program holds that file open. If that lists nothing, dig through "ps axu" (as root) and look for a bitcoin related program. Kill it and voila.

[Bert]

I would check for bitcoin or bitcoind, at a guess one of them was running while you deleted the folder. And it is probably still running.
ps -ef | grep bitcoin