> -----Original Message-----
> From: dave / thomases.com [mailto:dave / thomases.com]On Behalf Of Dave
>
> Right now, the 'ri' package installs itself into
>
>    site_ruby/ri/...      for .rb files and data files
>    bindir/ri             the ri command
>
> Akira Yamada is putting together a Debian package for ri (Thank you
> very much!), and made the following suggestions:
>
> 1. Firstly, install ri into
>
>       bindir       ri itself
>       libdir/ri    the .rb files
>       datadir/ri   the datafiles
>
>    So, for a typical Ruby installation, you'd be installing into
>
>       /usr/local/bin/ri
>       /usr/local/lib/ri/ri.rb
>       /usr/local/lib/ri/refdoc.rb
>              :           :
>       /usr/local/share/ri/Array
>              :           :
>
>    (currently, the .rb and data files would go into
>       /usr/local/ruby/site_ruby/ri)
>
> 2. He also asked for the ability to add a preface to all the
>    installation directories (his example was adding
>    /var/tmp/package-build-root, so I assume this must be part of the
>    Debian packaging process).
>
> My question: should 'ri' and similar packages be installed in the
> general system directory tree like this, or should they go in the Ruby
> tree as they are now? What are the advantages and disadvantages or
> each? How can we make it easy for package maintainers, and also for
> casual users? What are the issues?

  I've got one question. What is supposed to happen when you have multiple
installations of Ruby?
  I know that right now I have 3 copies of Python on my system: standard
Python 2.0, ActiveState Python 2.0, and standard Python 2.1beta2. Generally
they all coexist peacfully (obviously only one owns the .py file
association), and it is very useful for me to have them all, since the last
in the list is a beta and potentially unstable, while the first two offer
slightly different feature sets. If I install something packaged with
Python's DistUtils, I can install it into whichever Python installation I
want by running the setup with the Python version I want, assuming it only
dumps stuff into Python dirs.
  So w/regards to any Ruby add-on, if there are potential dependencies on a
Ruby version, I am appreciative of it being able to work in an environment
where there are multiple Ruby installs laying around...