# Building 1.8.7 on ubuntu 9.10

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/building-1-8-7-on-ubuntu-9-10/191376>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [July 11, 2010, 5:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/building-1-8-7-on-ubuntu-9-10/191376 "2010-07-11T05:50:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![msoulier](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/97f17d/32.png) [@msoulier](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/msoulier)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2010, 5:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/building-1-8-7-on-ubuntu-9-10/191376/1 "2010-07-11T05:50:26Z")

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I prefer to make use of my own ruby build for the most part, and for  
experimentation. I’m running Ubuntu 9.10 and I was surprised when I  
had issues building ruby 1.8.7 on it.

First, I had to dig to find 1.8.7, there were no links on the main  
ruby website. Meanwhile Rails recommends 1.8.7.

Then, math.c wouldn’t compile due to an error exposed by gcc4. I fixed  
that.

Once built, the unit tests failed on floats, as something was causing  
the interpreter to drop decimals in floats. ie. I entered 2.6 and got  
26 instead.

Now, 1.8.7 is built on ubuntu so I looked and it’s 1.8.7-p174. Indeed,  
that does build fine. So, my question is, why doesn’t the latest 1.8.7  
build?

Thanks,  
Mike

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![msoulier](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/97f17d/32.png) [@msoulier](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/msoulier)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2010, 6:01am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/building-1-8-7-on-ubuntu-9-10/191376/2 "2010-07-11T06:01:33Z")

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msoulier wrote:

> Once built, the unit tests failed on floats, as something was causing  
> the interpreter to drop decimals in floats. ie. I entered 2.6 and got  
> 26 instead.
> 
> Now, 1.8.7 is built on ubuntu so I looked and it’s 1.8.7-p174. Indeed,  
> that does build fine. So, my question is, why doesn’t the latest 1.8.7  
> build?

I remember seeing this with gcc-4.4 and some _older_ ruby patchlevels,  
but that problem seems to have gone away more recently.

I’m using ubuntu 9.10 with:

$ ruby -v  
ruby 1.8.7 (2010-06-23 patchlevel 299) [x86\_64-linux]  
$ gcc --version  
gcc (Ubuntu 4.4.1-4ubuntu9) 4.4.1  
Copyright © 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is  
NO  
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR  
PURPOSE.