Question

Are there any differences in the save locations for the following commands?:

gem install some_gem
sudo gem install some_gem
bundle install

bundle install is for rails 3 project.

Will all of them save the installed gem in the same directory or in different directories?

Answer 1

Probably in different directories, because the “root” user has a different account and path than you do.

Root’s access via sudo will allow the file to be written to the gem environment for a Ruby in the /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin directories. (Gem won’t put the files there, but they’ll be associated with a Ruby in one of those directories.)

You don’t have access to write to those areas by default, so if you tried to run gem install, and only had a System Ruby, you’d probably get permission errors and the attempt should fail.