Context:

I recently installed Ruby Enterprise Edition (REE) on an Ubuntu 8.04 server.

I would like for this new version of Ruby to globally supersede (for all users, crontabs, etc) the older version in /usr/local/bin.

Attempted Solution #1:

The REE documentation recommends placing the REE bin folder at the beginning of the global PATH in /etc/environment. I altered the PATH line in this file to read:

PATH="/opt/ruby_ee/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games"

This did affect my PATH at all.

Attempted Solution #2:

Next I followed these instructions and updated the PATH setting in the /etc/login.defs and /etc/crontab files. (I did not change /etc/sudoers.)

This didn't affect my PATH either, even after logging out and rebooting the server.

Other information:

• I seem to be having the same problem described here.
• I'm testing using the command: echo $PATH
• My shell is bash. My .bashrc doesn't not alter my PATH.
• I'm ssh'ed into the system for all testing.
• /opt/ruby_ee/ is a sym-link to /opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2011.03/