Similar environment variables problems

[DouglasAllen]

I guess Alex's email from the Rakefile is no longer valid.
Here's the mail text.
Dear Alex,

I was able to install rsruby gem with a little work.
My system is a Debian Linux and R gets most of it's files put under
/usr/share/R at least the include for development.

My problem is as follows:
Is this correct then for R_HOME environment variable?
export R_HOME=/usr/share/R
or should it be
export R_HOME=/usr/share/R:$PATH

The first one in my .bashrc gives me this in irb
irb(main):001:0> require 'rsruby'
=> true
irb(main):002:0> require 'rsruby/erobj'
=> true
irb(main):003:0> r = RSRuby.instance
cannot find system Renviron
Fatal error: unable to open the base package

Some of the documentation isn't exactly clear on the environment varaiable of course becuse you have to cover other systems.

Then I tried it like this
export R_HOME=/usr/share/R:$R_HOME # in .bashrc

douglasallen@kalionacompaq:$ echo $R_HOME
/usr/share/R:
douglasallen@kalionacompaq:$ gem install rsruby -- --with-R-dir=$R_HOME
Building native extensions with: '--with-R-dir=/usr/share/R:'
This could take a while...
Successfully installed rsruby-0.5.1.1
1 gem installed

irb(main):001:0> require 'rsruby'
=> true
irb(main):002:0> require 'rsruby/erobj'
=> true
irb(main):003:0> r = RSRuby.instance
cannot find system Renviron
Fatal error: unable to open the base package

Oh well. Any suggestions? It isn't that big of a deal but I thought that I would try it since reading a little of this article
http://patshaughnessy.net/2011/10/31/dont-be-terrified-of-building-native-extensions

Best Regards or 73
de KB9AGT Douglas in De Kalb IL USA

Anyway so how can I set my environment right. I'm using kali linux which is debian wheezy.
Thanks.