# Running gem on an "old" computer

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/running-gem-on-an-old-computer/157100>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [January 7, 2009, 11:34am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/running-gem-on-an-old-computer/157100 "2009-01-07T11:34:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![alby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@alby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/alby)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 11:34am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/running-gem-on-an-old-computer/157100/1 "2009-01-07T11:34:36Z")

</div>

I’m using gem version 1.1.1.

I’m trying to update some gems I have. I do “gem update gem\_name” and  
gem is stuck on:

Bulk updating Gem source index for: [http://gems.rubyforge.org/](http://gems.rubyforge.org/)

It takes ages and trashes my swap space. I have only a limited amount of  
memory (256 MB) and it seems that’s the bottleneck.

I remember having this problem before, in the days of gem 0.9. Upgrading  
to 1.1.1 solved the problem, but I now see that the problem hasn’t  
completely gone.

Is there a workaround for this?