It appears that if you install rubygems under a non-standard prefix
then "gem update --system" breaks.
I have rubygems installed as a non-privileged user. Everything works
fine with GEM_HOME and RUBYLIB set properly in the environment. But,
when I try to upgrade rubygems from 0.9.1 -> 0.9.2 , "gem update
--system" fails.
[...]
setup.rb:515:in `initialize': Permission denied - /usr/bin/gem (Errno::EACCES)
Running "update_rubygems" manually doesn't fair any better.
$ update_rubygems
Error: Cannot find RubyGems Update Path!
RubyGems has already been updated.
The rubygems-update gem may now be uninstalled.
E.g. gem uninstall rubygems-update
Eventually I found a successful workaround...
cd $GEM_HOME/gems/rubygems-update-*/ &&
ruby setup.rb all --prefix=$GEM_PREFIX
...where $GEM_PREFIX is the prefix I installed rubygems to. I'm glad
that it worked, but surely it should be easier than this? It would be
nice if "gem update --system" accepted --prefix=$GEM_PREFIX , but as
far as I can tell it does not.
Regards,
Jeremy Henty
Did you file a bug in the tracker? I guarantee your bug report will get lost if you don't.
···
On Mar 15, 2007, at 15:50, Jeremy Henty wrote:
It appears that if you install rubygems under a non-standard prefix
then "gem update --system" breaks.
[... bug report ...]
Would that be the tracker that is conspicuously *not* linked to
anywhere on the front page of the RubyGems web site, thereby
encouraging visitors to conclude it does not exist? 
OK, it's done. (And also a bug about the web site not linking to the
tracker.)
Regards,
Jeremy Henty
···
On 2007-03-18, Eric Hodel <drbrain@segment7.net> wrote:
On Mar 15, 2007, at 15:50, Jeremy Henty wrote:
It appears that if you install rubygems under a non-standard prefix
then "gem update --system" breaks.
[... bug report ...]
Did you file a bug in the tracker?
It's better to check if the problem has already been reported before ...
http://rubyforge.org/tracker/?func=detail&aid=8470&group_id=126&atid=575
···
On Sunday 18 March 2007, Jeremy Henty wrote:
On 2007-03-18, Eric Hodel <drbrain@segment7.net> wrote:
> On Mar 15, 2007, at 15:50, Jeremy Henty wrote:
>> It appears that if you install rubygems under a non-standard prefix
>> then "gem update --system" breaks.
>>
>> [... bug report ...]
>
> Did you file a bug in the tracker?
Would that be the tracker that is conspicuously *not* linked to
anywhere on the front page of the RubyGems web site, thereby
encouraging visitors to conclude it does not exist?
OK, it's done. (And also a bug about the web site not linking to the
tracker.)
--
Sylvain Joyeux
D'oh! I've added a note to my submission pointing out that it's a
duplicate of yours. Thanks for catching that.
Regards,
Jeremy Henty
···
On 2007-03-18, Sylvain Joyeux <sylvain.joyeux@polytechnique.org> wrote:
It's better to check if the problem has already been reported before ...
http://rubyforge.org/tracker/?func=detail&aid=8470&group_id=126&atid=575