From: Al Gordon <runlevel7@...>
Date: 2006-07-25T06:16:41+09:00
Subject: Re: RubyGems or packages or both?

On 7/24/06, Benedikt Heinen <ruby@ml.icemark.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Jul 2006, Roman Hausner wrote:
>
> > I am puzzled as to what the recommended way to install packages (from
> > the point of view of Ruby developers) should be: RubyGems or
> > distribution-specific (Linux)packages for each (Ruby)package?
> >
> > I am asking because Ubuntu "deliberately" does not include RubyGems as a
> > (Linux) package, arguing that (Ruby) packages should always be installed
> > using the (Linux) packaging system (apt-get etc) instead of RubyGems.
> > They argue that using RubyGems would inevitably break things.
> >
> > Is it known what the opinion of Ruby developers and expert Ruby users is
> > on this?
>
> I'm using rubygems on ubuntu, which works fine.
>
> In terms of what the ubuntu people (and likely other dists) are saying, is
> that it is hard to cleanly integrate rubygems into the debian system, when
> it comes to, say, the user installing debian packages that might depend on
> some rubygems.
>
> e.g. assume you might want to install a rails app, that comes as a stock
> ubuntu package - if you install your ubuntu from dvd to a machine that
> does not (currently) have a network connection, ubuntu can't access your
> rubygem  (while, presumably, if it was another ubuntu package, you'd have
> it on the same dvd you're installing ubuntu from).
>
> Worse yet, even if you managed to install the package, there is nothing
> stopping you from de-installing a rubygem, without apt-get or dpkg (the
> debian package managers) even knowing about it, i.e. you'd break an
> installed ubuntu package, without the ubuntu package manager having any
> idea what might have happened.
>
>
>
> I'm happy with just having my own local gem repository; YMMV...

I've had good success making a .deb package of rubygems using the
checkinstall application, then installing gems of applications that
come packaged in gem format.  That way, everything is packaged on my
system, including rubygems.

Being a Debian/Ubuntu user, I would really prefer for everything to be
packaged with the same packaging system (apt/dpkg).  However, since
that's aprently not very feasible, I have to be happy having
everything packaged under 2 systems.

The thought of just doing a 'make install' or 'ruby setup.rb' is far
less prefereable to me than doing an apt-get install or gem install.
To each their own, I suppose, but I like my installed software under
some form of sane package management.

-- 

  -- AL --