# Compile requirements of Ruby and Extensions

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/compile-requirements-of-ruby-and-extensions/56607>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [April 1, 2006, 5:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/compile-requirements-of-ruby-and-extensions/56607 "2006-04-01T17:51:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![subroutine](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@subroutine](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/subroutine)\
**Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 5:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/compile-requirements-of-ruby-and-extensions/56607/1 "2006-04-01T17:51:29Z")

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Hi,

is there anywhere a list what libs ruby and a extension needs to be  
configured and compiled?

Thanks.  
Markus

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**Author:** ![subroutine](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@subroutine](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/subroutine)\
**Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 6:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/compile-requirements-of-ruby-and-extensions/56607/2 "2006-04-01T18:24:56Z")

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On Apr 1, 2006, at 7:48 AM, Markus K. wrote:

> is there anywhere a list what libs ruby and a extension needs to be  
> configured and compiled?

Unfortunately, no. I dug around until I figured it out. See  
attached script for help.

–Steve

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![subroutine](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@subroutine](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/subroutine)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 4:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/compile-requirements-of-ruby-and-extensions/56607/3 "2006-04-02T04:00:40Z")

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Ruby seems to have very few dependencies. On my ruby 1.8.4 / linux  
system it seems to require openssl for ruby itself and readline, zlib,  
ncurses and gdbm for the standard libraries and other tools. Obviously  
different platforms may have alternatives to these libraries instead.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![subroutine](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@subroutine](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/subroutine)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 12:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/compile-requirements-of-ruby-and-extensions/56607/4 "2006-04-02T12:29:03Z")

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Timothy G. wrote:

> Ruby seems to have very few dependencies. On my ruby 1.8.4 / linux  
> system it seems to require openssl for ruby itself and readline, zlib,  
> ncurses and gdbm for the standard libraries and other tools. Obviously  
> different platforms may have alternatives to these libraries instead.

But that is not the end. Tk needs libtk,libtcl…  
It tries to find and link with e.g. libtermcap and I don’t know if it is  
bad or ok if this fails.  
Then I think there are replacements in Ruby script if some libs are  
missing. These script replacements are of course slower in execution as  
the binary code.  
Shouldn’t the make test check if the compilation was successful?  
I’ve done a small C-file patch and lib/ruby/1.8/(arch)/socket.so got not  
build.  
The make all, make install and make test doesn’t abort.  
So I don’t know if everything is in place after make install.  
Or if it could happen that anytime in the future I use some feature and  
Ruby misses a file to do its work. Or if my build is fine or it could be  
done better.

It would be a very simple work for developers during development to note  
the libs they try to link with.

Then I am missing --enable/disable-features in configure.