"gem update --system is disabled on Debian" error

Question

When I try to update rubygems (by running 'gem update --system') I get this error:

ERROR:  While executing gem ... (RuntimeError)
gem update --system is disabled on Debian. RubyGems can be updated using the official Debian repositories by aptitude or apt-get.

Any idea what might be wrong and how I can fix it?

Answer 1

There are two ways: get rid of the debian ruby package and install ruby from source, or you can follow the instrucions given to you:

RubyGems can be updated using the official Debian repositories by aptitude or apt-get.

the rubygems with debian is managed by apt, and so you need to update it with it. If you don't want to, you need to install ruby on you own, without using apt. Or at least you need to install ruby-gems on you own. Try this:

[sudo] apt-get remove rubygems
wget http://production.cf.rubygems.org/rubygems/rubygems-1.3.7.tgz
tar xzf rubygems-1.3.7.tgz
cd rubygems-1.3.7
[sudo] ruby setup.rb