Rubygems install confusion - beginner problems

ruby-talk
1

Yesterday I compiled ruby 1.8.7, and have verified that it's now resident on my Kubuntu Linux 8.10 OS. All's well, except that I'm in a bit of a muddle with rubygems. It appears that something or other (Philip Gawlowski suggested it might be Amorok) has installed Ruby 1.9 on my OS, and with it rubygems 1.2.0. But I want ruby 1.8.7 and rubygems 1.3.1.

Right now, looking at /usr/local/lib/site_ruby, I see BOTH 1.8 and 1.9.0. Makes sense, I guess.

Yesterday I installed rubygems 1.3.1, and things went awry. Ignoring that for now, I just redid the installation, and things went better, indicating that somehow yesterday we had a moment or two of pilot error. Sigh.

Here's the first part of the console output for today install of rubygems v. 1.3.1 -

tomc@tomc-desktop:~/Software archive/Rubygems/rubygems-1.3.1$ sudo ruby setup.rb
[sudo] password for tomc: mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/1.8 mkdir -p /usr/bin mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/1.8/rbconfig

What I have now is this:

tomc@tomc-desktop:~$ which gem
/usr/bin/gem
tomc@tomc-desktop:~$ gem -v
1.2.0
tomc@tomc-desktop:~$ which gem1.8
/usr/bin/gem1.8
tomc@tomc-desktop:~$ gem1.8 -v
1.3.1

When I tried, yesterday, to install the RedCloth gem using "gem install...", the install failed. Something about write permissions. Today, I find that I can install RedCloth just fine, and and just did, using "gem1.8".

So....my question: It would appear that ruby 1.9, when it got installed, by whatever program needed it, also installed rubygems, but not in a way that I can get to, and in any case it isn't the latest version, and finally, it won't let me use it anyway. I now have ruby 1.8.7, and rubygems 1.3.1 installed, but I have NO confidence that ruby 1.8.7 will access rubygems 1.3.1 should something it's executing need it. I sure hope I'm making sense here.

How in the world can I get this fixed? I badly need to get some gems loaded and get to work again with ruby, and I'm close, but can't close the deal.

Can someone tell me how to tell ruby 1.8.7 to go to the right rubygems when it needs to? I'm sure this involves some environment variable, and I'll keep looking for this, but someone who know could sure help me by simply pointing to it.

Thanks very much for any help you can offer.

t.

2

Tom Cloyd wrote:

Yesterday I compiled ruby 1.8.7, and have verified that it's now resident on my Kubuntu Linux 8.10 OS. All's well, except that I'm in a bit of a muddle with rubygems. It appears that something or other (Philip Gawlowski suggested it might be Amorok) has installed Ruby 1.9 on my OS, and with it rubygems 1.2.0. But I want ruby 1.8.7 and rubygems 1.3.1.

Right now, looking at /usr/local/lib/site_ruby, I see BOTH 1.8 and 1.9.0. Makes sense, I guess.

Yesterday I installed rubygems 1.3.1, and things went awry. Ignoring that for now, I just redid the installation, and things went better, indicating that somehow yesterday we had a moment or two of pilot error. Sigh.

Here's the first part of the console output for today install of rubygems v. 1.3.1 -

tomc@tomc-desktop:~/Software archive/Rubygems/rubygems-1.3.1$ sudo ruby setup.rb
[sudo] password for tomc: mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/1.8 mkdir -p /usr/bin mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/1.8/rbconfig

What I have now is this:

tomc@tomc-desktop:~$ which gem
/usr/bin/gem
tomc@tomc-desktop:~$ gem -v
1.2.0
tomc@tomc-desktop:~$ which gem1.8
/usr/bin/gem1.8
tomc@tomc-desktop:~$ gem1.8 -v
1.3.1

When I tried, yesterday, to install the RedCloth gem using "gem install...", the install failed. Something about write permissions. Today, I find that I can install RedCloth just fine, and and just did, using "gem1.8".

So....my question: It would appear that ruby 1.9, when it got installed, by whatever program needed it, also installed rubygems, but not in a way that I can get to, and in any case it isn't the latest version, and finally, it won't let me use it anyway. I now have ruby 1.8.7, and rubygems 1.3.1 installed, but I have NO confidence that ruby 1.8.7 will access rubygems 1.3.1 should something it's executing need it. I sure hope I'm making sense here.

How in the world can I get this fixed? I badly need to get some gems loaded and get to work again with ruby, and I'm close, but can't close the deal.

Can someone tell me how to tell ruby 1.8.7 to go to the right rubygems when it needs to? I'm sure this involves some environment variable, and I'll keep looking for this, but someone who know could sure help me by simply pointing to it.

Thanks very much for any help you can offer.

t.

Well, the response to this is definitely underwhelming. I'll try to come up with more interesting problems in the future!

Meanwhile...it occurred to me that perhaps there IS a rubygems that my ruby 1.8.7 can find, and I just verified that in irb:

irb(main):004:0> require 'rubygems'
=> true
irb(main):005:0> require 'RedCloth'
=> true
irb(main):006:0>

I still don't know which version of rubygems is being accessed, though - of the two that my system has - 1.2 and 1.3.1. Maybe I can puzzle this out somehow. Any help would be appreciated...

t.

3

Tom Cloyd wrote:

Yesterday I compiled ruby 1.8.7, and have verified that it's now resident on my Kubuntu Linux 8.10 OS. All's well, except that I'm in a bit of a muddle with rubygems. It appears that something or other (Philip Gawlowski suggested it might be Amorok) has installed Ruby 1.9 on my OS, and with it rubygems 1.2.0. But I want ruby 1.8.7 and rubygems 1.3.1.

Right now, looking at /usr/local/lib/site_ruby, I see BOTH 1.8 and 1.9.0. Makes sense, I guess.

Yesterday I installed rubygems 1.3.1, and things went awry. Ignoring that for now, I just redid the installation, and things went better, indicating that somehow yesterday we had a moment or two of pilot error. Sigh.

Here's the first part of the console output for today install of rubygems v. 1.3.1 -

tomc@tomc-desktop:~/Software archive/Rubygems/rubygems-1.3.1$ sudo ruby setup.rb
[sudo] password for tomc: mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/1.8 mkdir -p /usr/bin mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/1.8/rbconfig

More important were the last few lines, they'd look something like (I'm on OS X):

RubyGems installed the following executables:
  /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/gem

If `gem` was installed by a previous RubyGems installation, you may need
to remove it by hand.

Which tells you were RubyGems put the `gem` command.

What I have now is this:

tomc@tomc-desktop:~$ which gem
/usr/bin/gem
tomc@tomc-desktop:~$ gem -v
1.2.0

gem env is more illuminating:

$ gem env
RubyGems Environment:
   - RUBYGEMS VERSION: 1.3.1.1939
   - RUBY VERSION: 1.8.6 (2008-03-03 patchlevel 114) [universal-darwin9.0]
[...]

tomc@tomc-desktop:~$ which gem1.8
/usr/bin/gem1.8
tomc@tomc-desktop:~$ gem1.8 -v
1.3.1

When I tried, yesterday, to install the RedCloth gem using "gem install...", the install failed. Something about write permissions. Today, I find that I can install RedCloth just fine, and and just did, using "gem1.8".

So....my question: It would appear that ruby 1.9, when it got installed, by whatever program needed it, also installed rubygems, but not in a way that I can get to, and in any case it isn't the latest version, and finally, it won't let me use it anyway.

Likely /usr/bin/gem is a symlink to /usr/bin/gem1.9, likewise for ruby -> ruby1.9. To make things easier for yourself fix the symlinks to point to your most-commonly used ruby.

I now have ruby 1.8.7, and rubygems 1.3.1 installed, but I have NO confidence that ruby 1.8.7 will access rubygems 1.3.1 should something it's executing need it. I sure hope I'm making sense here.

I have 100% confidence ruby 1.8.7 will access rubygems 1.3.1. Try:

/path/to/ruby1.8.7 -vrubygems -e 'p Gem::RubyGemsVersion'

Mine says:

$ /usr/bin/ruby -vrubygems -e 'p Gem::RubyGemsVersion'
ruby 1.8.6 (2008-03-03 patchlevel 114) [universal-darwin9.0]
"1.3.1.1939"

Can someone tell me how to tell ruby 1.8.7 to go to the right rubygems when it needs to? I'm sure this involves some environment variable, and I'll keep looking for this, but someone who know could sure help me by simply pointing to it.

It always will. Different major versions of Ruby have different repositories entirely. For 1.9+, minor versions have different repositories.

Meanwhile...it occurred to me that perhaps there IS a rubygems that my ruby 1.8.7 can find, and I just verified that in irb:

irb(main):004:0> require 'rubygems'
=> true
irb(main):005:0> require 'RedCloth'
=> true
irb(main):006:0>

I still don't know which version of rubygems is being accessed, though - of the two that my system has - 1.2 and 1.3.1. Maybe I can puzzle this out somehow. Any help would be appreciated...

There is only one version of RubyGems allowed per Ruby. Compare gem1.8 env to gem1.9 env, namely GEM PATHS output.

···

On Dec 15, 2008, at 09:01 AM, Tom Cloyd wrote:

4

Eric,

Thank you very much for your detailed and thoughtful response. This is more than I ever hoped for, and is certainly quite helpful. Thank you for taking the time to address my problems. We all benefit so very much from you work.

Tom

Eric Hodel wrote:

···

On Dec 15, 2008, at 09:01 AM, Tom Cloyd wrote:

Tom Cloyd wrote:

Yesterday I compiled ruby 1.8.7, and have verified that it's now resident on my Kubuntu Linux 8.10 OS. All's well, except that I'm in a bit of a muddle with rubygems. It appears that something or other (Philip Gawlowski suggested it might be Amorok) has installed Ruby 1.9 on my OS, and with it rubygems 1.2.0. But I want ruby 1.8.7 and rubygems 1.3.1.

Right now, looking at /usr/local/lib/site_ruby, I see BOTH 1.8 and 1.9.0. Makes sense, I guess.

Yesterday I installed rubygems 1.3.1, and things went awry. Ignoring that for now, I just redid the installation, and things went better, indicating that somehow yesterday we had a moment or two of pilot error. Sigh.

Here's the first part of the console output for today install of rubygems v. 1.3.1 -

tomc@tomc-desktop:~/Software archive/Rubygems/rubygems-1.3.1$ sudo ruby setup.rb
[sudo] password for tomc: mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/1.8 mkdir -p /usr/bin mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/1.8/rbconfig

More important were the last few lines, they'd look something like (I'm on OS X):

RubyGems installed the following executables:
    /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/gem

If `gem` was installed by a previous RubyGems installation, you may need
to remove it by hand.

Which tells you were RubyGems put the `gem` command.

What I have now is this:

tomc@tomc-desktop:~$ which gem
/usr/bin/gem
tomc@tomc-desktop:~$ gem -v
1.2.0

gem env is more illuminating:

$ gem env
RubyGems Environment:
  - RUBYGEMS VERSION: 1.3.1.1939
  - RUBY VERSION: 1.8.6 (2008-03-03 patchlevel 114) [universal-darwin9.0]
[...]

tomc@tomc-desktop:~$ which gem1.8
/usr/bin/gem1.8
tomc@tomc-desktop:~$ gem1.8 -v
1.3.1

When I tried, yesterday, to install the RedCloth gem using "gem install...", the install failed. Something about write permissions. Today, I find that I can install RedCloth just fine, and and just did, using "gem1.8".

So....my question: It would appear that ruby 1.9, when it got installed, by whatever program needed it, also installed rubygems, but not in a way that I can get to, and in any case it isn't the latest version, and finally, it won't let me use it anyway.

Likely /usr/bin/gem is a symlink to /usr/bin/gem1.9, likewise for ruby -> ruby1.9. To make things easier for yourself fix the symlinks to point to your most-commonly used ruby.

I now have ruby 1.8.7, and rubygems 1.3.1 installed, but I have NO confidence that ruby 1.8.7 will access rubygems 1.3.1 should something it's executing need it. I sure hope I'm making sense here.

I have 100% confidence ruby 1.8.7 will access rubygems 1.3.1. Try:

/path/to/ruby1.8.7 -vrubygems -e 'p Gem::RubyGemsVersion'

Mine says:

$ /usr/bin/ruby -vrubygems -e 'p Gem::RubyGemsVersion'
ruby 1.8.6 (2008-03-03 patchlevel 114) [universal-darwin9.0]
"1.3.1.1939"

Can someone tell me how to tell ruby 1.8.7 to go to the right rubygems when it needs to? I'm sure this involves some environment variable, and I'll keep looking for this, but someone who know could sure help me by simply pointing to it.

It always will. Different major versions of Ruby have different repositories entirely. For 1.9+, minor versions have different repositories.

Meanwhile...it occurred to me that perhaps there IS a rubygems that my ruby 1.8.7 can find, and I just verified that in irb:

irb(main):004:0> require 'rubygems'
=> true
irb(main):005:0> require 'RedCloth'
=> true
irb(main):006:0>

I still don't know which version of rubygems is being accessed, though - of the two that my system has - 1.2 and 1.3.1. Maybe I can puzzle this out somehow. Any help would be appreciated...

There is only one version of RubyGems allowed per Ruby. Compare gem1.8 env to gem1.9 env, namely GEM PATHS output.

--

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tom Cloyd, MS MA, LMHC - Private practice Psychotherapist
Bellingham, Washington, U.S.A: (360) 920-1226
<< tc@tomcloyd.com >> (email)
<< TomCloyd.com >> (website) << sleightmind.wordpress.com >> (mental health weblog)
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