Best Rails environment for Windows 7

What is the best and easiest way of running Ruby on Rails on a Windows
7 machine?

I really want to learn Rails, but I haven’t found any easy way of
installing it on Windows 7.

this is the best way to get setup on Windows

Install Ubuntu 10.10 on Windows using wubi.exe. It does not require
partitioning your disk. And it can be easily removed.

On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 8:26 AM, Chief [email protected] wrote:

What is the best and easiest way of running Ruby on Rails on a Windows
7 machine?

Add a vm running Ubuntu and do your rails work on it. You will have more
support than trying to deal with Windows, also, chances are you will be
deploying to a Linux environment so it will put you more on the game.

On 28 April 2011 01:06, Luis L. [email protected] wrote:

Add a vm running Ubuntu and do your rails work on it. You will have more
support than trying to deal with Windows, also, chances are you will be
deploying to a Linux environment so it will put you more on the game.

Could be, but you might be ignoring for a second that this simple
statement might come up with a steeped learning curve (learn a new OS,
bash, a package manager, etc).

Well, they’re already going to be learning a new programming language,
and gem package manager, and framework conventions… I’d assume that
if they can do that, they can wiggle a mouse to the top of a screen
for the menus rather than the bottom, and type slashes in the other
way round :-/

Now, as proper response to the OP: You can install RailsInstaller:

You’re elucidated a slightly patronising and a little riled response
from me, as this line above of yours is very patronising - suggesting
a VM on Windows is a proper response too.

It provides an out-of-the-box experience for you to start playing with
Ruby and Rails.

It bundles the initial components like Git and SQLite3, reducing the
setup/configuration required for creating new applications.

Good luck with all of the little bits of the nice plugins/gems that
you’ll want to use that don’t work on Windows. Happy hunting when
you want to deploy your app somewhere and no one supports Rails on
Windows and you need to be familiar with the bash stuff anyway.

The majority of people that start with Rails on Windows fall into two
camps: those that shrug and say “this is pointless, nothing works as
the documentation says” and give up, and those that switch to Mac or
some other *nix on a PC.

Don’t get me wrong, I do quite admire the work that’s gone into the
“Rails on Windows” tutorials that were posted up over the last month,
but the bottom line is that Rails really doesn’t work well on
Windows. It may be possible to run it there, but that doesn’t mean you
should. If anyone is learning Rails for any purpose other than
curiosity, then the sooner they move to *nix the better (for them), so
they may as well start there with a VM.

hmm never ran it under windows but I’m curious if using cygwin or
jruby might be an option.

Other windows tools I am aware of are pik

and IronRuby
http://www.ironruby.net/

OP I’m not going to tell you to switch OSes and you have a very good
question. I am curious myself of the best practice for development on
the windows platform.

Keep in mind though that Ruby was built on the UNIX technologies and
concepts. (matz uses debian sid if my trivia is correct). If you run
into any real issues where errors are not user error consider taking a
more pragmatic approach to learning rails in it’s native programming
environment.

~

On Apr 27, 6:28pm, David K. [email protected] wrote:

On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 8:26 AM, Chief [email protected] wrote:

What is the best and easiest way of running Ruby on Rails on a Windows
7 machine?

Add a vm running Ubuntu and do your rails work on it. You will have more
support than trying to deal with Windows, also, chances are you will be
deploying to a Linux environment so it will put you more on the game.

Could be, but you might be ignoring for a second that this simple
statement might come up with a steeped learning curve (learn a new OS,
bash, a package manager, etc).

And after all that then you will take a look to the stuff you want
to learn in the first place.

Now, as proper response to the OP: You can install RailsInstaller:

It provides an out-of-the-box experience for you to start playing with
Ruby and Rails.

It bundles the initial components like Git and SQLite3, reducing the
setup/configuration required for creating new applications.

Watch the screencast in the website if you’re still unconvinced.

HTH,

Luis L.

On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 8:26 AM, Chief [email protected] wrote:

What is the best and easiest way of running Ruby on Rails on a Windows
7 machine?

I really want to learn Rails, but I haven’t found any easy way of
installing it on Windows 7.

Install a VM of Ubuntu or Linux and develop on that. Avoid installing
Ruby
or Ruby on Rails on Windows like the plague. You will be in for more
trouble
that it is worth trying to get everything you need to work on Windows.

B.

On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 05:06:48PM -0700, Luis L. wrote:

Could be, but you might be ignoring for a second that this simple
statement might come up with a steeped learning curve (learn a new OS,
bash, a package manager, etc).

But he wasn’t ignoring the OP’s request. The OP asked for the best
rails environment, not the one with the shallowest learning curve.

Kevin
http://www.RawFedDogs.net
http://www.WacoAgilityGroup.org
Bruceville, TX

What’s the definition of a legacy system? One that works!
Errare humanum est, ignoscere caninum.

On 30 April 2011 13:36, Ron T. [email protected] wrote:

First of all, thank you all for your suggestions.
I think I’ll finally do the switch from Windows to Ubuntu. I wanted to do it
for a while, and I think it’s a good time to do it now.

A cautionary note, a new version of Ubuntu (11.04) has just been
released, which has made major changes to the UI and still has some
teething issues. I would advise an Ubuntu newcomer to install 10.10
for the moment (or even 10.04, the so called Long Term Support
release).

Colin

Others have mentioned railsinstaller, which I highly recommend if
you’re just getting started. However, in my personal opinion, if
you’re going to get serious about Rails development, you really need
some form of a *nix machine. The reason is that historically
speaking, Rubyists have been somewhat…reluctant to fully test and
support various ruby libraries on Windows. The architectures are just
so different and all. That doesn’t mean Ruby CAN’T work on Windows,
just that you may wind up running into more weird “one-off” bugs than
it’s worth.

You can download Ubuntu 10.10 (I agree with Colin’s post about 11.04
having a few potential issues since it’s so new) and VMWare Player
absolutely free. Use VMWare player (or there’s also Oracle Virtual
Box as well, either one works) to set up a new Ubuntu Linux (or
there’s Fedora, Gentoo, ArchLinux, etc. etc.) under Windows 7, then
launch that, and do your ruby development in there.

This is the approach I’m starting to use more and more these days
myself. If you have a mac, or have some hackintosh compatible
hardware, you can install OS X or the hackintosh version (look for
torrents and get it that way). Nobody’s taking responsibility for
laws broken or stuff that breaks, etc. etc. blah blah blah (damn over-
lawyering).

Good luck man. If you’re just getting your feet wet to see what it’s
like, I recommend the Rails Installer route already linked. If you’re
looking to get serious, go with a VM.

First of all, thank you all for your suggestions.
I think I’ll finally do the switch from Windows to Ubuntu. I wanted to
do it
for a while, and I think it’s a good time to do it now.

Once I install Ubuntu, what should I do next?

On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 7:36 AM, Ron T. [email protected] wrote:

First of all, thank you all for your suggestions.
I think I’ll finally do the switch from Windows to Ubuntu. I wanted to do
it for a while, and I think it’s a good time to do it now.

Once I install Ubuntu, what should I do next?

Google for instructions on installing Ruby on Rails on Ubuntu, then if
you
run in to trouble post back here. But basically, you want to run the
package
installer (apt-get) to install ruby. Once ruby is installed you will be
able
to use ruby gems to install the rest you need. It is probably too much
for
right now but at some point you shold look at using rvm which helps you
manage different versions of ruby on the same machine and to allow
different
installations of rails configurations for your different projects.

I think the tips I’ve used when installing rails on Windows is this:

  1. Do not use the native package manager to install ruby, rvm and
    gems.
    • Install your own custom rvm, ruby and rails.
    • The native package manager generally has very outdated ruby and
      rvm
      versions.
    • I know this hurts unix purists, but it’s your time and using
      rvm/gem/rails like most other people do will save you a lot of
      time.
  2. Use the railsready script to automate installing custom rvm, ruby
    and
    rails versions.

I think that’s it.

Btw, Rails 3 works best with Ruby 1.9.2. You may bump into bugs with
Ruby
1.8.7 that can be hard to detect and debug. So type ‘ruby --version’
after
installing ruby to make sure that you’re running a recent version.

Best,
Andy

Type. I meant the tips I’ve used when installing rails on Linux, not
Windows.

On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 8:34 AM, Andreas Saebjoernsen <

On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 10:34 AM, Andreas Saebjoernsen
[email protected] wrote:

The native package manager generally has very outdated ruby and rvm
versions.
I know this hurts unix purists, but it’s your time and using rvm/gem/rails
like most other people do will save you a lot of time.

rvm is a user sandbox. why would that hurt a purist?

Disclaimer: I really like the unix model of building products.

The objection I’ve heard is specifically for

  • gems that depends on native packages in the repository
  • ruby, rvm and ruby that is already in the native package manager
    The idea expressed was that dependencies are already explicitly defined
    by
    the native package manager, and that this is the clean way of resolving
    these dependencies. Another objection to installing your own version was
    that this bypasses the standard way for distributions to deploy security
    and
    bug-fixes.

From experience I think this view falls short because most dependencies
are
resolved by just calling bundler, and for those that are not you can
just
update your README with the proper information.

best,
Andy

are part of the package repository

Colin L. wrote in post #995944:

A cautionary note, a new version of Ubuntu (11.04) has just been
released, which has made major changes to the UI and still has some
teething issues. I would advise an Ubuntu newcomer to install 10.10
for the moment (or even 10.04, the so called Long Term Support
release).

Colin

Nothing wrong with 10.04 or 10.10. However, running Gnome 2.32.1 on
11.04 Works great. You do not need to run Unity if you don’t want to.

To the OP: Switch to Ubuntu - It will change your life.