Installing my own gems on a Dreamhost account

[Jeff]

Hey all,

Does anyone who uses Dreamhost have any experience installing your own
gems there?

On their wiki, I've found this:
http://wiki.dreamhost.com/index.php/Ruby_on_Rails#Using_Gems_Installed_in_Your_Home_Directory

And this:
http://wiki.dreamhost.com/index.php/Passenger
(down at the bottom)

But I seem to be too dumb to interpret these directions, since neither
one seems to work.

This seems to be similar, though not specifically Dreamhosty:
http://jbowes.dangerouslyinc.com/2008/05/13/installing-ruby-gems-in-your-home-directory/

Again, trying this just got my process killed by some Dreamhost
daemon. I'm not quite to the point where I'm ready to go to a ruby-
specific hosting company, but it seems like a lot of my project ideas
are going to require installing one gem or another, so I hope I can
figure this out.

Thanks,
Jeff