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To turn these off, modify your ~/.gemrc file and add the line: gem: --no-rdoc --no-ri

Great tip. I sometimes remember to add these while I'm typing gem install..., but most of the time I forget, so this will help.

I actually use my local rdoc all the time.

I followed this guide http://alkesh.vaghmaria.com/2009/07/offline-gem-server/ to have a local rdoc server running through passenger (so I don't have to run gem server manually).

This is great for working offline, and it also means that the docs are always usign sdoc, which is a great template which allows for good searching. >90% of projects have crap rdoc templates.

I do agree that building ri is a waste of time, though.

If you install your gems without rdoc on, you can just use open_gem (http://github.com/adamsanderson/open_gem) to build the rdocs on the fly with `gem read <gemname>`

Being a sysadmin (who did a lot of gem installs on production for the devs) rather than a Ruby guy, I didn't know this was a tip. I always figured everyone wanted this stuff, and I was the odd one out. Besides, no one should be reading rdoc on the production machines anyway.

I prefer mine in /etc/gemrc

Faster Ruby Gem installs