(newbie question) gem

Hi,

I am a Ruby newbie.

The version I am using is:

  ruby 1.8.7 (2008-08-11 patchlevel 72) [x86_64-linux]

The following commands work (or I haven't found anything
disagreeable so far):

  irb
  ruby
  ri

But gem doesn't work for me.  Here's what happens:

  $ gem
  /usr/local/bin/gem:8:in `require': no such file to load -- rubygems 
(LoadError)
          from /usr/local/bin/gem:8

I look at /usr/local/bin/gem and here are three lines, starting at line 8:

  require 'rubygems'
  require 'rubygems/gem_runner'
  require 'rubygems/exceptions'

So the complaint is that it doesn't find these files.

I ran find, like this:

  $ sudo find / -name rubygems\*
  Password:
  /home/tsakai/Notes/Ruby/ruby-1.9.1-p129/lib/rubygems
  /home/tsakai/Notes/Ruby/ruby-1.9.1-p129/lib/rubygems/rubygems_version.rb
  /home/tsakai/Notes/Ruby/ruby-1.9.1-p129/lib/rubygems.rb
  /home/tsakai/Notes/Ruby/ruby-1.9.1-p129/test/rubygems
  /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rubygems
  /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/rubygems_version.rb
  /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rubygems.rb
  $ 

I have reasons that I don't want to use 1.9.1.  I do want to use 1.8.7.

So...  My question is where do I have to go to get what's
necessary to run gems under 1.8.7?

Also, if there are some tips as to what I must do to get
it working, I would appreciate it very much.

Thank you in advance.

Regards,

Tena Sakai
tsakai@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx