[DRE-maint] Bug#595168: rubygems1.8: gem uninstall --user-install requires root permission

[Ken Bloom]

Package: rubygems1.8
Version: 1.3.7-1
Severity: normal

I can install gems without root permission using the gem install
--user-install command, but to uninstall those gems, I need root
permission.

This is because --user-install *adds* the user directory to the list
of places to uninstall the gem from, rather than treating it as the
only place to remove the gem from when the --user-install option is
given. (See "gem help uninstall" for the documentation of this
behavior.)

Can you fix it so that I don't need root permission to uninstall my
own gems?

[bloom at little-cat-a ~]$ locate hebruby
/var/lib/gems/1.8/doc/kbloom-Hebruby-1.2.2/rdoc/files/lib/hebruby_rb.html
/var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/kbloom-Hebruby-1.2.2/lib/hebruby.rb
/var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/kbloom-Hebruby-1.2.2/test/hebruby_tests.rb
[bloom at little-cat-a ~]$ gem uninstall --user-install kbloom-Hebruby 
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (Gem::FilePermissionError)
    You don't have write permissions into the /var/lib/gems/1.8 directory.
[bloom at little-cat-a ~]$ sudo !!
sudo gem uninstall --user-install kbloom-Hebruby 
Successfully uninstalled kbloom-Hebruby-1.2.2


-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages rubygems1.8 depends on:
ii  ruby1.8 [rdoc1.8]            1.8.7.302-1 Interpreter of object-oriented scr

rubygems1.8 recommends no packages.

Versions of packages rubygems1.8 suggests:
ii  build-essential              11.5        Informational list of build-essent
ii  ruby1.8-dev                  1.8.7.302-1 Header files for compiling extensi
pn  rubygems-doc                 <none>      (no description available)

-- no debconf information