# Install into $HOME fails

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/install-into-home-fails/54043>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [February 21, 2006, 3:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/install-into-home-fails/54043 "2006-02-21T15:41:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2006, 3:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/install-into-home-fails/54043/1 "2006-02-21T15:41:12Z")

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I don’t know how to install Ruby into my home directory. Looking  
at the Makefile, I thought that

make prefix=$HOME install

should do the job, but make still tries to install into /usr/local  
(which fails because I don’t have write-access there).

Any easy work-around to this?

Ronald

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2006, 4:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/install-into-home-fails/54043/2 "2006-02-21T16:30:15Z")

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I believe you need to specify the prefix on the ./configure step:

…/configure --prefix=$HOME

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2006, 4:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/install-into-home-fails/54043/3 "2006-02-21T16:45:37Z")

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removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid (Ronald F.) writes:

> I don’t know how to install Ruby into my home directory. Looking  
> at the Makefile, I thought that
> 
> make prefix=$HOME install
> 
> should do the job, but make still tries to install into /usr/local  
> (which fails because I don’t have write-access there).
> 
> Any easy work-around to this?

./configure --prefix=$HOME  
make  
make install

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [February 22, 2006, 10:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/install-into-home-fails/54043/4 "2006-02-22T10:59:28Z")

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> > I don’t know how to install Ruby into my home directory. Looking  
> > at the Makefile, I thought that
> > 
> > make prefix=$HOME install
> > 
> > should do the job, but make still tries to install into /usr/local  
> > (which fails because I don’t have write-access there).

> /configure --prefix=$HOME

Thank you, this works.

It would be great if this information could be put into the README.

Ronald

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [February 22, 2006, 6:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/install-into-home-fails/54043/5 "2006-02-22T18:50:15Z")

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removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid (Ronald F.) writes:

> Thank you, this works.
> 
> It would be great if this information could be put into the README.

The README says to run ./configure to generate the Makefile.  
…/configure --help tells you all the configure options.

The configure script, and its --help option, is standard for things  
that use autoconf (lots of stuff in the free software world). I guess  
it couldn’t hurt to mention --help in the README, though.