# R2.2: config.gems

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/r2-2-config-gems/152594>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [November 5, 2008, 1:28pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/r2-2-config-gems/152594 "2008-11-05T13:28:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![namealreadytaken](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/97f17d/32.png) [@namealreadytaken](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/namealreadytaken)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2008, 1:28pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/r2-2-config-gems/152594/1 "2008-11-05T13:28:01Z")

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What does the new config.gems get you that the old $GEM\_PATH and  
$GEM\_HOME does not?

See  
[http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/HowToUseMultipleGemRepositories](http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/HowToUseMultipleGemRepositories)

I just have a global gems repo, and the wider use-any-gem  
functionality of vendor/gems for all gems, not just rails,  
by setting:  
GEM\_HOME to RAILS\_ROOT/gems  
and setting:  
GEM\_PATH to $GEM\_HOME:

What am I missing?

just  
%mkdir gems gems/bin  
%export GEM\_HOME=gems

and so on. See the web page above.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![namealreadytaken](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/97f17d/32.png) [@namealreadytaken](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/namealreadytaken)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2008, 2:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/r2-2-config-gems/152594/2 "2008-11-05T14:26:58Z")

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On 5 Nov 2008, at 12:27, fredistic wrote:

> What does the new config.gems get you that the old $GEM\_PATH and  
> $GEM\_HOME does not?

That everything in your app is under source control (and conversely  
deploying/updating your app just implies checking out the code)

Fred