Question

So I’m trying to install a package

$ sudo gem install compass

to be specific. It installs correctly and shows up when I do a list:

$ gem list

*** LOCAL GEMS ***

chunky_png (1.2.5)
compass (0.12.2)
fssm (0.2.9)
sass (3.1.20)

but for some reason when I try to run compass nothing happens. It says the command is not found. What am I doing wrong?

$ compass
  bash: compass: command not found

I’m running Ubuntu if that helps.

Answer 1

Confirm that there is output for locate -r /compass.rb$, then echo $GEM_HOME. You should find that gem doesn’t know about the directory that compass installed to. You can either move it from its previous location into the directory specified by GEM_HOME, or else append that directory to the variable in your ~/.bash_rc file. Much better, though, would be to use rvm for managing your gems (and Rubies), as it neatly avoids this sort of issue and also allows much finer control over the whole process.