I recently upgraded my distro (Ubuntu from 16.04 to 18.04), and I guess either on the upgrade or on the regular sudo update/upgrade calls gem was upgraded and I currently have the 2.7.6 version. I barely use Ruby lately, but just now I had to run a jekyll/bundle command which returned me that it had a bad interpreter (it was looking for ruby2.3 and it's currently installed on the 2.5 version).
My next step would be updating the jekyll and bundle gems (so they update the interpreter version), but to my surprise they aren't listed when I run gem list. They were obviously installed since there's a /usr/local/bin/jekyll executable and a /usr/local/bin/bundle one as well. But I think when gem was upgraded it started checking gems on a different folder (/var/lib/gems/2.5.0 I'm guessing) but jekyll/bundle apparently are in /var/lib/gems/2.3.0. I'd be fine just installing jekyll/bundle on the 2.5.0 version, but is there a way to remove all gem files from the older version since they are useless now?
I highly recommend you to use a ruby version manager like rvm or rbenv to manage different ruby versions installed on your system.
If you just want to remove the gems from your disk, you can find the location of each gem with the command bundle show $gem_name and delete the parent directory to delete all of them. You may need to delete the Gemfile.lock as well to reset the locked gem versions.
Here's what I recommend:
Use rbenv for multiple Ruby version management, no customizations needed
a ruby installer plugin is now included with rbenv
it also handles ruby executable shims automatically, don't need to rbenv rehash anymore
it loads really fast (rvm has a noticable load time on shell startup)
Use bundler to dynamically resolve gems at runtime (options below)
it's fast enough anyways
don't need a special gem solution, bundler comes included /w Ruby now
Options to invoke bundler dynamically (I recommend the last one):
use bundle exec in front of every ruby executable
variant: create alias be='bundle exec'
create bundle binstubs <LIST GEM EXECUTABLES YOU WANT> for each project
use bin/ in front of every ruby executable to call the binstubs
do #2 and then set up .git/safe
lets you manually allow PATH lookups to the bin/ folder while in that project root
don't need to type bin/ anymore
Now multiple gem versions will all be installed into the same Ruby version bucket, and you let bundler dynamically add the right versions to the load path before every startup.
Removing a Ruby version will also mean removing all the gems (and versions of those gems) installed for that Ruby version as well.
I'd like to thank both answers. I upvoted them because even though they're not a direct solution to my problem they give good directions to prevent it.
NOTE: These are the steps I took, which doesn't mean they are the correct way, so don't take more as a reference than a guide.
Here's what I did to clean up those old Ruby version gems:
First I needed to add an environment variable for gem to be able to find those obsolete gems, by running GEM_PATH=/var/lib/gems/2.3.0.
Then it's possible to get the contents and specification of the gems with gem contents name_of_gem and gem specification name_of_gem.
I individually uninstalled those gems that were obsolete with sudo GEM_PATH=/var/lib/gems/2.3.0 gem uninstall -i /var/lib/gems/2.3.0 name_of_gem. In my case I did a sudo install, so I needed sudo which also required me to set the environment variable again because of sudo's security policy. Also, I needed to manually set the install directory for some reason.
Some gems will have executables, and the uninstall will ask if you want to remove it. I wasn't able to get the gem uninstall to remove it because it claimed I didn't have write permission to /var/lib/gems/2.3.0/bin (which is weird because the EXECUTABLE DIRECTORY gem environment variable was /usr/local/bin). I asked gem not to remove the executables, wrote down their names and removed them manually from the EXECUTABLE DIRECTORY folder. You can also use which gem_executable_name to find out where it's located.
After uninstalling all the gems I believe it's safe to remove the /var/lib/gems/2.3.0 folder and its contents. Running gem contents on all of them only returned me files on this folder so I believe the only external files were the script/executables that were added to /usr/local/bin.
I was trying to install Sinatra and I kept on getting this error: You don't have write permissions for the /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0 directory
Thanks to "Installing gem or updating RubyGems fails with permissions error" I installed rbenv. I followed the guide and set my global ruby version, etc. but I continue to get the same error when I try to install gems. When I run gem environment the installation directory for RubyGems is still the system Ruby directory.
Should I update GEM_PATH? Since the rbenv guide doesn't mention anything about that, something makes me think that there is still a problem with my rbenv installation.
Can someone please help me figure this out?
You're not showing us the commands you're using but it smells like you're using sudo to install Sinatra. Don't do that with rbenv or RVM managed Rubies.
Just as in the linked question, using rbenv or RVM allows you have one or more Rubies in your user-space where you can modify them all you want. That means you don't need to use sudo, just use gem install ....
An alternate problem you could be having is you set your global Ruby to be system, which is the version installed by Apple for their use, and which you don't want to modify unless you understand why it's there and what they're using it for. IF you have to change it then sudo would be appropriate but, with rbenv or RVM managing Rubies in your user-space there's really no reason to.
Do NOT use chmod to change the ownership of the vendor installed gems; Again, that's for Apple's use so have fun with the local Rubies instead and leave Apple's alone.
In this case, I quit Terminal and upon reopening, things were working correctly. Probably a good thing to try if you're stuck and are sure you've followed instructions correctly. It's not explicitly mentioned in the material I read but I believe is a good practice in general.
To clarify, I'm using rbenv to manage my ruby versions. I was under the impression that binaries are managed as shims in their respective ruby version directory.
Here is what my system shows when I run gem environment (I'm excluding the irrelevant parts):
- GEM PATHS:
- /Volumes/Data/nathan/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p194/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1
- /Volumes/Data/nathan/.gem/ruby/1.9.1
Any reason for having two locations? Curious minds want to know.
I think I figured out the answer to this question, so I'll post it.
Rbenv allows for a global and/or local version of ruby. So once a ruby is installed and managed via rbenv, you can declare it as a global ruby version used by your entire system.
Likewise, you can declare a local ruby version within a given directory (ex: a specific rails project).
The .gem file in your home path is used by the global ruby version, where as the one tucked away in the rbenv directory is used by the local ruby version.
Note, you can (for whatever reason) declare a local version that is the same as the global version. In that case, the local version will rely on the gem files that are in the deeper rbenv directory, instead of the ~/.gem directory.
Keep in mind that ruby version managers like rbenv and rvm are relatively recent creations. Before they existed, an admin user would usually install ruby in a system-wide location like /usr/local. But non-admins needed a place to install their own gems, since they didn't have write permission under /usr/local . So the rubygems creators decided to add a secondary gem path in the current user's home directory, which would have a similar structure to the system location.
Here's an example of what the gem paths looked like in the old days:
- /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1
- /Users/kelvin/.gem/ruby/1.9.1
There still may be machines where ruby is installed like this, and you still have that recourse of the automatic secondary gem path. Of course you can also add more paths using the GEM_PATH environment variable, but the auto one is nice for handling the common case.
If you have admin rights, or you use a version manager, you can just ignore the ~/.gem dir as an artifact, a relic of the past if you will.
- /Volumes/Data/nathan/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p194/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1
is from rbenv, so ruby looks for the gems rbenv installed.
- /Volumes/Data/nathan/.gem/ruby/1.9.1
Apparently, rbenv doesn't restrict itself to its own gems, but rather includes the gems from system ruby as well, but only the ones that are installed as user (via gem --user-install).
I am trying to get Jekyll running but I have no experience with Ruby.
As far as I can tell the installation of Jekyll has succeeded.
However:
$ jekyll
Gives an error:
-bash: jekyll: command not found
This is the gem env result:
- RUBYGEMS VERSION: 1.3.4
- RUBY VERSION: 1.8.7 (2010-01-10 patchlevel 249) [universal-darwin10.0]
- INSTALLATION DIRECTORY: /Volumes/HDD/DADU/gems
- RUBY EXECUTABLE: /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby
- EXECUTABLE DIRECTORY: /Volumes/HDD/DADU/gems/bin
- RUBYGEMS PLATFORMS:
- ruby
- universal-darwin-10
- GEM PATHS:
- /Volumes/HDD/DADU/gems
- /Volumes/HDD/DADU/.gem/ruby/1.8
- /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8
- /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8
- GEM CONFIGURATION:
- :update_sources => true
- :verbose => true
- :benchmark => false
- :backtrace => false
- :bulk_threshold => 1000
- REMOTE SOURCES:
- http://gems.rubyforge.org/
And I found the following paths leading to "something" Jekyll:
~.gem/ruby/1.8/gems/jekyll-0.11.0/lib/jekyll.rb
~.gem/ruby/1.8/gems/bin/jekyll (exec file)
If you are using MacOS, from the Troubleshooting guide:
Jekyll & Mac OS X 10.11Permalink
With the introduction of System Integrity Protection, several directories that were previously writable are now considered system locations and are no longer available. Given these changes, there are a couple of simple ways to get up and running. One option is to change the location where the gem will be installed (again, using sudo only if necessary):
$ gem install -n /usr/local/bin jekyll
For others coming here with the following set up:
OS X + brewed install of ruby + (possibly) zsh
I figured the problem is that after installing jekyll as per their instructions, gem installs the jekyll gem in the brew cellar, not where the OS usually expects it (somehwere in a gem directory for ruby).
So, all that was needed here was to find out where the brew install of ruby installs gems, locate the jekyll binary, and create a symbolic link to it in /usr/bin.
Here is are the steps I took to fix it:
Type gem env and look for GEM PATHS. For me it was:
/usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p194/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1.
Make sure you can see the jekyll binary in the directory from 1 above and copy its path (if you can't, search any other paths listed in GEM PATHS for it). For me it was:
/usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p194/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/jekyll-1.4.3/bin/jekyll
Use the path from step 2 above to create a symlink to /usr/bin/jekyll. I did it by typing this (you might need sudo to create the symlink):
cd /usr/bin && ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p194/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/jekyll-1.4.3/bin/jekyll jekyll
Now all should be merry if you type jekyll.
The easiest method of doing this is to use RVM. It manages Ruby and all its gems for you and it's easy to use. See this link for using it.
If you did not want to use that you will need to modify your PATH variables so it can find your gems. I have found this to be tedious and reverted to RVM, but here are the general steps.
You will need to find out where your gems are getting installed. If you did gem install ... the gems will be in ~/.gem/ruby/1.8/gems/bin, if you used sudo gem install ... the gems will be somewhere in /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/Resources
You have to add this path to your PATH variable. Easiest way to do this is by running :
echo 'PATH=$PATH:above/path/to/gems' >> ~/.bash_profile
If you are using RBENV instead of RVM you simply need to run rehash in the command line after installing jekyll:
rbenv rehash
I installed my ruby2.6.0 and gem via brew on MacOS 10.14.
For me, add the following line to my ~/.zshrc solved this issue.
export PATH=/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/2.6.0/bin:$PATH
I found jekyll executable file with command locate jekyll.
Maybe a little late, but...
I had some trouble to install Jekyll on Ubuntu and tried everything that people answered in this thread - unfortunately nothing worked.
Then, I watched a video on Jekyll's site and after installing the whole ruby package again, sudo gem install jekyll worked.
Try it before anything else:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ruby-full
sudo gem install jekyll
jekyll -v
It seems pretty simple, but it works on Ubuntu.
One solution would be editing your ~/.bashrc file and add this line:
PATH=$PATH:~/.gem/ruby/1.8/gems/bin
This will add ~/.gem/ruby/1.8/gems/bin in Bash's lookup path.
Reopen the terminal and it should work. Or you can use the following command:
. ~/.bashrc
Following steps solved my problem
gem uninstall jekyll
sudo gem install jekyll
Open ~/.bash_profile and add this code in the last line,
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/jekyll-2.5.2/bin
Save and close the .bash_profile
Close and reopen the mac terminal, try running jekyll now, it should work
For me, I followed this installation guide instead of their main page's installation instruction. It worked after I changed the bash_profile file and restarted Terminal.
Jekyll is a ruby gem : Ruby gems in linux, for example, are in /var/lib/gems/1.8, as can be seen in the "ruby env" output.
Thus, you need to add the executables in this directory to your path.
In general, if a ruby gem is "not found" by your OS, it simply indicates that either
1) You don't have the gem installed or
2) You don't have the gem installed in a directory that is on your path.
I have found that there have been a few issues with installing ruby and ruby gems on linux (I have found that it can be tricky on Ubuntu v10, and have confirmed this with the Ruby folks on IRC). Thus, tools like RVM or rbenv might be the best approach to setting up a stable, maintainable ruby environment.
Easier than creating a symlink just install it correctly.
If you got permission errors like a lot of people are getting when trying to use
gem install jekyll
instead use
sudo gem install jekyll
#jayunit100,
I'm running into the same issue with a Jekyll blog. I've installed the gem via RVM in a 'Blog directory and the _config.yml file says that it should generate into Blog/_site. Is it as simple as adding Blog to the PATH or is there something else I'm missing?
Update: My bad, I didn't really have the gem installed. Lesson learned: rvm requirements and brew doctor are there for a reason - before you install stuff USE THEM
In my case I had to run bundle install --force
Then bundle exec jekyll serve works, but jekyll serve still doesn't. It seems I'll have to go with the former from now on…
When you use the --user-install option, RubyGems will install the gems to a directory inside your home directory, something like ~/.gem/ruby/1.9.1. The commands provided by the gems you installed will end up in ~/.gem/ruby/1.9.1/bin. For the programs installed there to be available for you, you need to add ~/.gem/ruby/1.9.1/bin to your PATH environment variable.
For example, if you use bash you can add that directory to your PATH by adding code like this to your ~/.bashrc file:
if which ruby >/dev/null && which gem >/dev/null; then
PATH="$(ruby -r rubygems -e 'puts Gem.user_dir')/bin:$PATH"
fi
https://guides.rubygems.org/faqs/#user-install
I put it in the .bash_profile (Mac OS X).
https://hathaway.cc/2008/06/how-to-edit-your-path-environment-variables-on-mac/
Here's an updated answer for 2020 (soon 2021). To install any Ruby gem, whether it's Jekyll, Bundler, Rails, etc., you need a proper Ruby development environment on a Mac. There are various ways to install Ruby on a Mac, as I have written about in great detail in my definitive guide to installing Ruby gems on a Mac. The only one I recommend is to use a Ruby manager because it's the most flexible and sets you up for success for the long term. My preferred one is chruby because it's the lightest and easiest to use. As part of installing Ruby, you also need to properly configure your shell startup file (typically ~/.zshrc or ~/.bash_profile) so that it knows where to find the gems you install. Otherwise, you'll get the "command not found" error, which I've also written about.
Since there are several steps involved in setting up a working Ruby development environment on a Mac, I wrote some scripts to automate the whole process and make things easier and faster for people. You can read more about the scripts in my guide mentioned above.
I had this problem for a very stupid reason, which is that I was working on Linux and had installed both flatpak and .deb versions of Visual Studio Code. I was confused because I could successfully run bundle exec jekyll serve in the terminal application, but not from the integrated terminal in Visual Studio Code.
Well, it turns out the integrated terminal loaded my PATH correctly in the .deb version but not the flatpak one. So... if you, like me, have foolishly installed multiple versions of Visual Studio Code, check which one you are using.
This is what worked for me. I'm not developing in ruby, and don't have a lot of tools that I use it for, so I don't need RVM. I also don't need to install jekyll as root. I just want it to run.
(This answer is just a more descriptive version of answers by Santa Zhang, jayunit100, and a few others.)
1. Find Local Gem Path
> gem env
Assuming this runs, it will list a bunch of useful information. You are looking for GEM PATHS. If there are two, then you want the one that is found in your home directory. Mine was something like /home/<user>/.local/share/gem/ruby/3.0.0
If it doesn't run, install the ruby gem program and try again.
2. Find Gem Binaries Path
Look in that directory until you find the location where the jekyll executable is actually installed. I found it in /home/<user>/.local/share/gem/ruby/3.0.0/bin/jekyll. But what I need is the directory path, not the file, so: /home/<user>/.local/share/gem/ruby/3.0.0/bin/.
3. Add That to PATH
Figure out how to add a directory to your PATH environment variable. Instructions for that are too extensive to provide here, as it depends on your operating system and preferred shell, and the versions of the same. Search for that information elsewhere on Stackoverflow.
4. Restart Your Session
Close your terminal and open a new one. Make sure the directory was added to your path. Depending on how you set your PATH variable, you might need to log out of your session and log in again.
This is really odd: I installed ruby 1.9.1 using a "191" suffix so that it will coexist with other versions. e.g. the executables look like ruby191, gem191 and the library directory where all of the vendor/site code lives is /usr/local/lib/ruby191. The version of RubyGems (1.3.1) that is included with ruby 1.9.1 works fine. The installation was performed with:
cd /usr/local/src/ruby-1.9.1-p429
./configure --prefix=/usr/local --program-suffix=191
make
sudo make install
However, when I upgrade my RubyGems installation with sudo gem191 update --system it appears to forget about all of the installed gems. When I checked it out with gem191 environment it is now looking in /usr/local/lib/ruby.
I know I can create a ~/.gemrc and change the location there, but that smells like a hack to me. I have spent a couple of hours trying to figure out where Gem.dir is set in the code, but have been unable to find it. Does anyone know where the default location is set?
Apparently the Gem engine didn't work properly under ruby 1.9.1, but has been fixed under ruby 1.9.2. After installing the latest build, all of my Gem issues have disappeared.
You should definitely use rvm gem for multiple ruby installations on one system.
P.S. You can view your gem installation path by using $ gem{suffix} env.