MICHAEL.W.WILSON / CUSTOMS.TREAS.GOV writes:

>        install, still nothing.  There is a
>        "/usr/gnu/lib/ruby/1.6/sparc-solaris2.6/socket.so", but that's
>        it.  ruby -e 'require "socket" or print "oh no"' says "oh no".

is that directory in your LD_LIBRARY_PATH (or the Solaris equivalent)?