How to create a rails new project without tainting the global rails environment.

Environment

OS

Linux ubuntu 3.13.0-24-generic #46-Ubuntu SMP Thu Apr 10 19:11:08 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Ruby

1.9.3p545

Ruby on Rails

4.1.0

rbenv

rbenv 0.4.0-97-gfe0b243

Prerequisite

You must install bundler at least to your ruby environment.

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$ rbenv exec gem install bundler
$ rbenv rehash

Steps

Create a working directory

Create a temporary directory for setup the rails environment. This enviroment will be deleted after committing and pushing to your repository.

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$ mkdir work
$ cd work

Create a ‘Gemfile’

Just only ‘rails’ in the ‘Gemfile’.

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$ cat << EOS > Gemfile
source "http://rubygems.org"
gem "rails", "4.1.0"
EOS

Install Ruby on Ralis

Install the ruby on rails to vendor/bundle directory temporarily.

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$ bundle install --path vendor/bundle

Create a new rails project

<project> is a new rails project name. Don’t forget to set --skip-bundle option, or all gems will be installed global location.

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$ bundle exec rails new <project> --skip-bundle

Tidy some temporary files and directories

Delete all unnecessary files and directories.

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$ rm -f Gemfile
$ rm -f Gemfile.lock
$ rm -rf vendor/bundle/

Setup the rails environment

Install gems depend on the Ruby on Rails. A new and official ‘Gemfile’ is created on bundle exec rails new <project> --skip-bundle.

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$ cd <project>
$ bundle install --path vendor/bundle

Check if the rails server starts successfully

Run rails server command and access to http://localhost:3000 with your browser.

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$ bundle exec rails s

Update ‘.gitignore’

Add /vendor/bundle to .gitignore file.

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$ echo '/vendor/bundle' >> .gitignore

Finally push a new project to your repository

Github? Bitbucket? Do what you want.