From: Hans Fugal <hans@...>
Date: 2004-07-31T01:56:43+09:00
Subject: gems and /usr/local

I submitted this bug, and it has been replied to:

http://rubyforge.org/tracker/?func=detail&atid=575&aid=717&group_id=126

I don't pretend to be an expert on the "way things should be", so I 
thought it would be better to at least allow the opportunity for 
discussion by bringing it up here.

My own preference for all things, ruby or otherwise, is that anything I 
install by hand goes under /usr/local, and anything that is installed by 
the primary package manager (dpkg in my case) goes in /usr. That way I 
can easily clean up the cruft without worrying about messing up files 
that belong to packages. Theoritcally there are other reasons too, like 
having a shared and/or readonly /usr. Gems itself installs in 
/usr/local/lib/site_ruby, but the gems get installed under 
/usr/lib/ruby. Gems ought to play in /usr/local or in /usr, but whatever 
it does it should be consistent. My own preference as you can guess is 
/usr/local.

FWIW CPAN stays under /usr/local/lib/perl5, with the default configuration.

I for one would now like to hear others' opinions on this.