# Newbie trouble with RubyGems

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-trouble-with-rubygems/69014>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [February 16, 2006, 1:41am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-trouble-with-rubygems/69014 "2006-02-16T01:41:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![don](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/ed655f/32.png) [@don](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/don)\
**Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 1:41am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-trouble-with-rubygems/69014/1 "2006-02-16T01:41:13Z")

</div>

This is a newbie question. I used OneClick to install Ruby onto my  
Windows XP machine. OneClick installed RubyGems. When I try the command

```
   gem list â??remote

```

the commands prints

```
 ***REMOTE GEMS***

```

to the console and then just hangs. Is there some config file somewhere  
where I am supposed to tell â??gemâ? where to look for remote gems?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![don](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/ed655f/32.png) [@don](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/don)\
**Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 6:53am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-trouble-with-rubygems/69014/2 "2006-02-16T06:53:51Z")

</div>

Don wrote:

> This is a newbie question. I used OneClick to install Ruby onto my  
> Windows XP machine. OneClick installed RubyGems. When I try the command
> 
> ```
> gem list â??remote
> 
> ```
> 
> the commands prints
> 
> ```
> ***REMOTE GEMS***
> 
> ```
> 
> to the console and then just hangs. Is there some config file somewhere  
> where I am supposed to tell â??gemâ? where to look for remote gems?

If you are behind a firewall and need an http proxy, make sure that you  
have your http\_proxy environment variable set correctly.

And sometimes the command takes a few minutes to complete when  
downloading the master gem index from rubyforge. Make sure that it is  
really hung and not just slow.

– Jim W.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![don](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/ed655f/32.png) [@don](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/don)\
**Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 3:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-trouble-with-rubygems/69014/3 "2006-02-16T15:12:47Z")

</div>

DÅ?a Å tvrtok 16 Február 2006 06:54 Jim W. napísal:

> And sometimes the command takes a few minutes to complete when  
> downloading the master gem index from rubyforge. Make sure that it is  
> really hung and not just slow.

Is local caching of the gem index in the works by any chance?

David V.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![don](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/ed655f/32.png) [@don](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/don)\
**Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 3:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-trouble-with-rubygems/69014/4 "2006-02-16T15:24:32Z")

</div>

David V. wrote:

> Is local caching of the gem index in the works by any chance?

The gem index is already locally cached. The problem is that the index  
updates so often that it needs refreshed often.

What is in the works is an incremental refresh so that you only download  
the portion of the index that has changed, instead of the entire index.

–  
– Jim W.