[arch-general] [arch-dev-public] Ruby directory clean up proposal.

[Thomas Dziedzic]

On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 3:58 AM, Paul Gideon Dann <pdgiddie at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday 14 Feb 2012 01:53:01 Peter Lewis wrote:
>> I think it's worth separating out the "user" and the "admin" in this
>> argument. To install a gem system-wide, you have to do something like "sudo
>> gem install XXX", right? This is almost always a bad idea, IMO, and people
>> hopefully won't do it at least during the normal run of working with ruby.
>> Personally, I don't let gem mess with anything outside my home directory.
>
> I'm worried.  I use "sudo gem install" to install gems system-wide.  It's not
> practical to use Arch packages for this instead, because I can't rely on a
> given gem always being packaged for Arch.  I also don't really see the point
> of packaging a package from another packaging system which already happily co-
> exists with pacman.  I have no issue using gem to administer system gems,
> since they always stay in /usr/lib/ruby and don't interfere with the rest of
> the system (except for /usr/bin, admittedly).
>

Some people choose to use pacman packaged gems because it handles deps
better and patches could get included to fix some issues.

I will only be implementing the changes in the planned layout only this cleanup.
That means I wont be moving system-wide installation to /var/.. yet
Don't worry, I wont forget about users that use gem to install to
system wide locations.
As already mentioned, I will make the default gem install to
$HOME/.gem/ruby and if you so choose, you can edit your gemrc to
install to the system wide location (/usr/lib.. for now).

> Can you clarify if you're planning to make it impossible to use gem to install
> system gems?  I *really* want to avoid using pacman for system gems and gem
> elsewhere.  It makes no sense to me.  I'd rather use gem for all gems.
>

I wont be forcing anyone to use pacman instead of gems, now or in the future.

> Maybe a quick summary of the plans so far?
>
> Paul

Summary of the changes in this cleanup:

/usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby - This directory is for user specific
installation and should never be touched by the package manager.
/usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby - ruby packages installed with pacman which
aren't gems go here
$HOME/.gem/ruby/[ruby_base_version] - default target when running gem
install foo because --user-install is now in the gemrc file
/etc/gemrc - contains "gem: --user-install" to install user installed
gems with gem to $HOME/.gem/gems

If the user chooses to install gems using gem, they will have to add
the bin directory to the $PATH:
export PATH="$PATH:$(ruby -rubygems -e 'puts Gem.user_dir')/bin".

System wide installation of gems by default will be disabled.
If you want system wide gems, either run gem with the
--no-user-install flag like "sudo gem install --no-user-install foo"
You can also install to the system wide location by removing
--user-install from /etc/gemrc