updating RubyGems on Ubuntu

Question

Does anybody know how to update RubyGems on Ubuntu. The usual way doesn't work:

steve@ubuntu:~$ rails /home/steve/www/mynewapp -d mysql       create         create  app/controllers       create  app/helpers       create  app/models       create  app/views/layouts       create  config/environments       create  config/initializers       create  config/locales       create  db       create  doc       create  lib       create  lib/tasks       create  log       create  public/images       create  public/javascripts       create  public/stylesheets       create  script/performance       create  test/fixtures       create  test/functional       create  test/integration       create  test/performance       create  test/unit       create  vendor       create  vendor/plugins       create  tmp/sessions       create  tmp/sockets       create  tmp/cache       create  tmp/pids       create  Rakefile       create  README       create  app/controllers/application_controller.rb       create  app/helpers/application_helper.rb       create  config/database.yml       create  config/routes.rb       create  config/locales/en.yml       create  db/seeds.rb       create  config/initializers/backtrace_silencers.rb       create  config/initializers/inflections.rb       create  config/initializers/mime_types.rb       create  config/initializers/new_rails_defaults.rb       create  config/initializers/session_store.rb       create  config/environment.rb       create  config/boot.rb       create  config/environments/production.rb       create  config/environments/development.rb       create  config/environments/test.rb       create  script/about       create  script/console       create  script/dbconsole       create  script/destroy       create  script/generate       create  script/runner       create  script/server       create  script/plugin       create  script/performance/benchmarker       create  script/performance/profiler       create  test/test_helper.rb       create  test/performance/browsing_test.rb       create  public/404.html       create  public/422.html       create  public/500.html       create  public/index.html       create  public/favicon.ico       create  public/robots.txt       create  public/images/rails.png       create  public/javascripts/prototype.js       create  public/javascripts/effects.js       create  public/javascripts/dragdrop.js       create  public/javascripts/controls.js       create  public/javascripts/application.js       create  doc/README_FOR_APP       create  log/server.log       create  log/production.log       create  log/development.log       create  log/test.log steve@ubuntu:~$ cd /home/steve/www/mynewapp steve@ubuntu:~/www/mynewapp$ ruby script/server Rails requires RubyGems >= 1.3.2 (you have 1.3.1). Please `gem update --system` and try again. steve@ubuntu:~/www/mynewapp$ gem update --system 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. 

Answer 1

Seems like you installed rubygems from Debian/apt-get package.

If you're on Ubuntu 9.04 or later, this might work:

sudo gem install rubygems-update sudo update_rubygems 

Otherwise, remove the package and install rubygems from source, which is the recommended way to install rubygems anyway:

sudo apt-get remove rubygems wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/60718/rubygems-1.3.5.tgz tar xzvf rubygems-1.3.5.tgz cd rubygems-1.3.5 sudo ruby setup.rb sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gem1.8 /usr/bin/gem sudo gem update --system 

More resources: Ruby on Rails installation on Ubuntu.