Index: src/org/jruby/environment/OSEnvironment.java
===================================================================
--- src/org/jruby/environment/OSEnvironment.java	(revision 2576)
+++ src/org/jruby/environment/OSEnvironment.java	(working copy)
@@ -88,13 +88,13 @@
                 // get environment from jruby command line property supplied class
                 runtime.getWarnings().warn("Getting environment variables using command line defined method: " + jrubyEnvMethod);
                 reader = getAccessibleOSEnvironment(runtime, jrubyEnvMethod);
-                
-                envs = null;
-                if (reader != null) {
-                    Map variables = null;
-                    variables = reader.getVariables(runtime);
-                    envs = getAsMapOfRubyStrings(runtime,  variables.entrySet());
-                }
+            }
+            
+            envs = null;
+            if (reader != null) {
+                Map variables = null;
+                variables = reader.getVariables(runtime);
+                envs = getAsMapOfRubyStrings(runtime,  variables.entrySet());
             }
         } catch (AccessControlException accessEx) {
             // default to empty env
Index: src/org/jruby/environment/OSEnvironmentReaderFromRuntimeExec.java
===================================================================
--- src/org/jruby/environment/OSEnvironmentReaderFromRuntimeExec.java	(revision 2576)
+++ src/org/jruby/environment/OSEnvironmentReaderFromRuntimeExec.java	(working copy)
@@ -29,8 +29,7 @@
 package org.jruby.environment;
 
 import java.io.BufferedReader;
-import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
-import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
+import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.InputStreamReader;
 import java.util.Map;
 
@@ -35,10 +34,6 @@
 import java.util.Map;
 
 import org.jruby.IRuby;
-import org.jruby.RubyKernel;
-import org.jruby.RubyString;
-import org.jruby.exceptions.RaiseException;
-import org.jruby.runtime.builtin.IRubyObject;
 
 class OSEnvironmentReaderFromRuntimeExec implements IOSEnvironmentReader {
 
@@ -78,22 +73,16 @@
 	 * @see org.jruby.IOSEnvironment#getVariables()
 	 */
     public Map getVariables(IRuby runtime) {
-
-        ByteArrayOutputStream output = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
-        
         try {
-			RubyKernel.runInShell(
-					runtime,
-					new IRubyObject[] {RubyString.newString(runtime, getEnvCommand())},
-					output);
-		} catch (RaiseException e) {
-			environmentReader.handleException(e);
-		}
-
-        BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(
-        		new InputStreamReader(new ByteArrayInputStream(output.toByteArray())));
+            Process process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(getEnvCommand());
+            return environmentReader.getVariablesFrom(
+                    new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(process.getInputStream()))
+                    );
+		} catch (IOException e) {
+            environmentReader.handleException(e);
+        }
         
-        return environmentReader.getVariablesFrom(reader);
+        return null;
     }
 
 }
Index: test/testEnv.rb
===================================================================
--- test/testEnv.rb	(revision 2576)
+++ test/testEnv.rb	(working copy)
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 require 'test/minirunit'
 
+test_ok(ENV['HOME'], "Reading external environment")
+
 #test_check('test_bracket')
 test_equal(nil, ENV['test'])
 test_equal(nil, ENV['TEST'])