Reputation: 3
I'm on ubuntu working with rails here What do I get when I try to install gem? Here it is
$ gem install rails
ERROR: While executing gem ... (Gem::FilePermissionError)
You don't have write permissions for the /var/lib/gems/2.1.0 directory.
what should I have to do to get it to work?
Upvotes: 0
Views: 3139
Reputation: 73
Normal user accounts generally don't have the ability (often called permissions or privilege) to write to files in the root (starts with "/") directory.
You need to elevate your privilege to that of a superuser, aka the root user. The most common way is to type
sudo [the command you wanted to run]
So type
sudo gem install rails
The system will ask you for your password and if it's your first time running sudo, it will warn you to be careful. :)
Edit: Listen to iceman's comment about using rvm or rbenv instead. Even though using sudo works for this, that does not mean it is the best option.
Upvotes: 1