# Installing Ruby and Ruby Gems in a USB Flash Stick **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [March 19, 2009, 4:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/installing-ruby-and-ruby-gems-in-a-usb-flash-stick/163363 "2009-03-19T16:00:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![rubina](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/e47c2d/32.png) [@rubina](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubina)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 4:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/installing-ruby-and-ruby-gems-in-a-usb-flash-stick/163363/1 "2009-03-19T16:00:01Z")
Hello team, Had anyone installed Ruby in a USB Flash Stick? I installed 1.9.1 using the vxRuby installer, which installs ruby and wxruby, in my 64GB USB memory stick. This created the following issues: 1. When I run it from a machine that already has ruby installed, I don’t know from where ruby is running. 2. When I try to install any gem, it actuall go to the C-Drive instead of my USB stick. I noticed that you can tell gem where to install gems, but it is not clear to me. F:\>gem help install Usage: gem install GEMNAME [GEMNAME …] [options] – --build-flags [options] Options: -i, --install-dir DIR Gem repository directory to get installed gems -n, --bindir DIR Directory where binary files are located For example, since in my case for this period of time my USB is drive F, I thought that this would work, and it does…kind of: \*F:\>gem install ezcrypto -i F:\ruby\lib\ruby\gems\1.9.1\gems \*Successfully installed ezcrypto-0.7.2 1 gem installed Installing ri documentation for ezcrypto-0.7.2… Installing RDoc documentation for ezcrypto-0.7.2… _ERROR: While executing gem … (TypeError) can’t convert Pathname into String_ This installs the gem but in the folder specified, but it does not creates a dir for the gem. It puts all the files in \*F:\ruby\lib\ruby\gems\1.9.1\gems. \* I was expecting something like: _F:\ruby\lib\ruby\gems\1.9.1\gems\ezcrypto_ The other problem that you can see is installing the documentation. This appears to be a known bug because it is happening on every machine where I installed 1.9.1. For now I am not too worry about it. Comments from anyone will be appreciated. Thank you ---
**Author:** ![rubina](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/e47c2d/32.png) [@rubina](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubina)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 4:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/installing-ruby-and-ruby-gems-in-a-usb-flash-stick/163363/2 "2009-03-20T16:15:38Z")
Ruby S. wrote: > Had anyone installed Ruby in a USB Flash Stick? … > 1. When I run it from a machine that already has ruby installed, I don’t > know from where ruby is running. > 2. When I try to install any gem, it actuall go to the C-Drive instead of > my USB stick. I noticed that you can tell gem where to install gems, but it > is not clear to me. You should look into setting a PATH environment variable to tell the system you’re working on to look for the ‘ruby’ and ‘gem’ executables on the USB stick, rather than on C:/ etc. Have a look at: [http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=path+environment](http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=path+environment) alex ---
**Author:** ![rubina](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/e47c2d/32.png) [@rubina](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubina)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/installing-ruby-and-ruby-gems-in-a-usb-flash-stick/163363/3 "2009-03-20T16:26:11Z")
On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 11:12 AM, Alex F. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)wrote: > > 1. When I try to install any gem, it actuall go to the C-Drive instead > > [path environment - Google Search](http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=path+environment) > > alex Thanks Alex!