> It doesn't matter.  If the application needs a library, and cannot
> find it, the application should report that library missing.  The
> application should NOT report some random library that has nothing to
> do with the actual missing library as missing.

I totally agree on this point. The error message I was getting had nothing to 
do with the real problem. So even if my installation was not well done (due 
to any factor we can imagine) this should not happen. I would have gotten a 
message telling me that the:
 require drb
was not successful. So I consider this as a bug in rubygems.

> If you want to declare all of what comes in ruby-1.8.tar.gz as
> "standard", that's fine.  If you want to claim it's a bug that it's
> not all there on a default Debian install, that's fine too-- file a
> bug.  But it is never correct for any application to report a bug in
> class A, when in fact it's in class B.  This is basic human factors--
> an error message should tell the user:

I also think that debian should install all the content of the ruby source 
distribution in its package. Or do a meta-package ruby-1.8 installing all the 
packages corresponding to the content of the source distribution having the 
actual ruby-1.8 transformed in ruby-base-1.8. This would still allow people 
wanting just the core part of ruby to have only what they want. Just an 
idea...

Ghislain