# About updating gems

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/about-updating-gems/131574>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [March 11, 2008, 3:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/about-updating-gems/131574 "2008-03-11T15:21:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![zoopzoop](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/59ef9b/32.png) [@zoopzoop](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zoopzoop)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2008, 3:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/about-updating-gems/131574/1 "2008-03-11T15:21:57Z")

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Hello everyone,

I’m novice in linux, ruby and rails. I’ve reinstalled my ubuntu  
operative system, the ruby module, and also the rubygems module. After  
that I’ve updated rubygems by this command:

sudo gem update --system

Ruby gem was updated successfully, but now I can’t use ruby gem, each  
time I write:

sudo gem list -r

or:

sudo gem help commands

or something else, I get the follow answer:

/usr/bin/gem:23: uninitialized constant Gem::GemRunner (NameError)

I don’t know what it means, so, does someone know the meaning? and does  
someone know how I can fix it?

Thank you very much.

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**Author:** ![zoopzoop](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/59ef9b/32.png) [@zoopzoop](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zoopzoop)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2008, 3:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/about-updating-gems/131574/2 "2008-03-11T15:34:13Z")

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Manuel Montañés wrote:

> /usr/bin/gem:23: uninitialized constant Gem::GemRunner (NameError)

This normally suggests the update didn’t update your “gem” command, or  
else updated one in a different area (perhaps you now have more than one  
version of the command installed?).

The gem command is a Ruby script and should have the 2 lines:

require ‘rubygems’  
require ‘rubygems/gem\_runner’

I suspect you are missing the 2nd line…

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**Author:** ![zoopzoop](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/59ef9b/32.png) [@zoopzoop](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zoopzoop)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2008, 5:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/about-updating-gems/131574/3 "2008-03-11T17:20:55Z")

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On Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:21:50 -0500, Manuel Montañés wrote:

> I don’t know what it means, so, does someone know the meaning? and does  
> someone know how I can fix it?
> 
> Thank you very much.

You should ideally be unable to run gem update --system on Debian and  
Ubuntu. This was discussed here on ruby talk, and also in a Debian bug  
at  
[http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=452547](http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=452547). I wouldn’t know  
whether this change has propagated to ubuntu yet, but you shouldn’t run  
“gem update --system” when the system package manager is in charge of  
which rubygems version is installed on your system.

To fix this, apt-get install --reinstall rubygems, and get rid of any  
rubygems stuff you may find in /usr/local

–Ken

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**Author:** ![zoopzoop](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/59ef9b/32.png) [@zoopzoop](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zoopzoop)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2008, 7:02pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/about-updating-gems/131574/4 "2008-03-11T19:02:35Z")

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Ken B. wrote:

> > 
> 
> [http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=452547](http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=452547). I wouldn’t know  
> whether this change has propagated to ubuntu yet, but you shouldn’t run  
> “gem update --system” when the system package manager is in charge of  
> which rubygems version is installed on your system.
> 
> To fix this, apt-get install --reinstall rubygems, and get rid of any  
> rubygems stuff you may find in /usr/local
> 
> –Ken

Ken, thanks. I’ve posted this problem twice to this list and gotten  
nothing, and this morning you give me…well not me exactly…the  
answer. I assumed that when you said  
"

To fix this, apt-get install --reinstall rubygems, and get rid of any  
rubygems stuff you may find in /usr/local

"  
you got that backwards. In any case, I removed the rubygems stuff in  
/usr/local and THEN did the reinstall. Now for the first time in 4 days  
I have working rubygems. Man…this needs to be written down somewhere.  
Like in my notes. So shall it be.

Thanks again.

Tom

–

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Private practice Psychotherapist
Bellingham, Washington, U.S.A: (360) 920-1226
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```

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**Author:** ![zoopzoop](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/59ef9b/32.png) [@zoopzoop](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zoopzoop)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2008, 8:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/about-updating-gems/131574/5 "2008-03-11T20:43:05Z")

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On Tue, 11 Mar 2008 13:01:53 -0500, Tom C. wrote:

> > > sudo gem update --system  
> > > or something else, I get the follow answer:  
> > > Ubuntu. This was discussed here on ruby talk, and also in a Debian bug
> 
> /usr/local and THEN did the reinstall. Now for the first time in 4 days  
> I have working rubygems. Man…this needs to be written down somewhere.  
> Like in my notes. So shall it be.

That order’s fine too. I figure it could be done in either order.

–Ken