Gems between two different machines

Hello,

I usually develop on a desktop machine, but I also have a laptop. I
want to be able to ensure that the gems I’ve installed on one machine
are available on the other.

$ gem env
seems to tell me where the gems actually live. But I also seem to have
a local ~/.gem directory. (and a .gemrc)

So my questions are these…

  1. what are the local directories for?
  2. Can I just copy the entire gem directory (from gem env) between two
    machines, and expect that to work?

Some possible flies in the ointment…

  • I’m using Mac OS X Leopard
  • The machines are different architectures (One is a G5, and one is an
    intel - but both are OS X)

Thanks,
John Schank

Are you using Rails 2 ? Then you should add the gems into you
application …

rake gems # List the gems that this
rails application depends on
rake gems:build # Build any native
extensions for unpacked gems
rake gems:install # Installs all required gems
for this application.
rake gems:refresh_specs # Regenerate gem
specifications in correct format.
rake gems:unpack # Unpacks the specified gem
into vendor/gems.
rake gems:unpack:dependencies # Unpacks the specified gems
and its dependencies into vendor/gems
rake rails:freeze:gems # Lock this application to
the current gems (by unpacking them into vendor/rails)
rake rails:unfreeze # Unlock this application
from freeze of gems or edge and return to a fluid use of system gems

Thanks for the reply.

Freezing the gems is certainly possible, but what about using gems
outside of rails?

Basically I’m just wondering if there is a really simple way to keep
two or more machines in sync with the same versions of various gems.
Aside from tediously listing the gems on one machine, and then
installing the missing ones on the other. And vice-versa.

John

Hi,

I have used gemsonrails(gemsonrails.rubyforge.org) plugin which helps
us
to freeze gems to a rails application. By this you can run your rails
application with just ruby installed on any new machine

-NAYAK