# Gem on macbook SLOW **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [March 13, 2008, 11:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-on-macbook-slow/131861 "2008-03-13T23:07:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ehuard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/e95f7d/32.png) [@ehuard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ehuard)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2008, 11:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-on-macbook-slow/131861/1 "2008-03-13T23:07:07Z")
Hello, i’ve got a brand new Macbook Pro. I’ve got ruby 1.8.6, as well as the usual gems. However, running gem install, or even rspec (which uses gem) takes a long time (2 minutes). I’ve tried debugging, and got as far as updated = @source\_index.update source\_uri in source\_info\_cache\_entry.rb, which seems to take a while (there might be other slow parts, that’s just one of them). It all works, but for rspec for instance it’s quite annoying to have to wait that long. I tried profiling but that didn’t yield anything that i could parse. Any ideas or similar experience ? Thanks, Elise ---
**Author:** ![ehuard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/e95f7d/32.png) [@ehuard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ehuard)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2008, 11:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-on-macbook-slow/131861/2 "2008-03-13T23:46:51Z")
On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 5:05 PM, Elise H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Any ideas or similar experience ? > Thanks, > > Elise What version of RubyGems are you running? This behavior has been improved in the newer versions (post 1.0, I believe). hth, Gordon ---
**Author:** ![ehuard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/e95f7d/32.png) [@ehuard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ehuard)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 12:08am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-on-macbook-slow/131861/3 "2008-03-14T00:08:36Z")
On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 07:05:24AM +0900, Elise H. wrote: > to wait that long. > I tried profiling but that didn’t yield anything that i could parse. > > Any ideas or similar experience ? Yes. Ruby gems does not use keep alive connections when fetching data from the remote gem server. I worked with Eric to fix gems to use keep alive connections and it was about 10x faster (IIRC). [http://rubygems.rubyforge.org/svn/trunk/lib/rubygems/remote\_fetcher.rb](http://rubygems.rubyforge.org/svn/trunk/lib/rubygems/remote_fetcher.rb) You should see a huge speed improvement on the next release of Rubygems. ---
**Author:** ![ehuard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/e95f7d/32.png) [@ehuard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ehuard)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 12:55am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-on-macbook-slow/131861/4 "2008-03-14T00:55:30Z")
On Mar 13, 4:02 pm, Elise H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > to wait that long. > I tried profiling but that didn’t yield anything that i could parse. > > Any ideas or similar experience ? > Thanks, > > Elise You might want to check out this thread: [http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse\_thread/thread/4fc65cdd3afbad00](http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse_thread/thread/4fc65cdd3afbad00) I had the same problem, but only after updating to Leopard. In that thread I mention changing my DNS servers, but I’ve dropped that part of the solution. Basically, what I did was disable IPv6 (System Preferences → Network → Advanced → TCP/IP → Configure IPv6) and add “require ‘resolv-replace’” to my copy of gem at /usr/local/bin/gem (of course, that goes away after gem update --system). HTH, Chris ---
**Author:** ![ehuard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/e95f7d/32.png) [@ehuard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ehuard)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 1:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-on-macbook-slow/131861/5 "2008-03-14T13:25:54Z")
On 14 mar, 00:53, Chris S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > updated = @source\_index.update source\_uri > > Chris > Thanks ! I’ll try that tonight. Failing that, i’ll check the > version, and upgrade if dated. > Best Regards, Elise ---
**Author:** ![ehuard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/e95f7d/32.png) [@ehuard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ehuard)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2008, 5:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-on-macbook-slow/131861/6 "2008-03-16T17:41:48Z")
On 14 Mar 2008, at 12:24, Elise H. wrote: > > > long time (2 minutes). I’ve tried debugging, and got as far as > > > Elise > > > (of course, that goes away after gem update --system). > > > > HTH, > > Chris > > Thanks ! I’ll try that tonight. Failing that, i’ll check the > version, and upgrade if dated. > Best Regards, > > Elise Also, I have noticed that gem installs run significantly faster from a machine in the western hemisphere (inside anywhere in the US). Is there a need for more EU mirrors presently? Are the mirrors geo- distributing correctly?