# Compiling ruby-1.8.6 on CentOS-4.5 with readline and openssl

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/compiling-ruby-1-8-6-on-centos-4-5-with-readline-and-openssl/113874>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [September 5, 2007, 8:47pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/compiling-ruby-1-8-6-on-centos-4-5-with-readline-and-openssl/113874 "2007-09-05T20:47:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d2c977/32.png) [@byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/byrnejb)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2007, 8:47pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/compiling-ruby-1-8-6-on-centos-4-5-with-readline-and-openssl/113874/1 "2007-09-05T20:47:18Z")

</div>

I am having problems with getting a recent version of ruby properly  
built and installed on my CentOS-4.5 box. I obtained the source from  
[ruby-lang.org](http://ruby-lang.org) and built it taking all the defaults in ./configure. I  
see both openssl and readline ext being built. However, after I “make  
install” ruby into /usr/local/lib|bin and try and open a console in a  
rails project I get a message telling me that the required library,  
“readline” is not available.

What must I do to enable this?

Sincerely,

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d2c977/32.png) [@byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/byrnejb)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2007, 10:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/compiling-ruby-1-8-6-on-centos-4-5-with-readline-and-openssl/113874/2 "2007-09-05T22:57:40Z")

</div>

James B. wrote:

I have discovered that running ./configure with the options  
–with-readline-dir=/usr and --with-openssl-dir=/usr seems to have  
solved the missing readline and openssl support problem. Now I discover  
that I can no longer find my installed gems. Sigh.

So… I went to cd /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rubygems-update-0.9.4  
and ran ruby setup.rb. Now I have to reload all of my gems I suppose  
using gem install x --include-dependencies --remote.

sigh. sigh…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d2c977/32.png) [@byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/byrnejb)\
**Post date:** [September 6, 2007, 12:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/compiling-ruby-1-8-6-on-centos-4-5-with-readline-and-openssl/113874/3 "2007-09-06T00:49:25Z")

</div>

> problems.  
> Or you use checkinstall. 😉  
> [http://checkinstall.izto.org/](http://checkinstall.izto.org/)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d2c977/32.png) [@byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/byrnejb)\
**Post date:** [September 6, 2007, 12:34am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/compiling-ruby-1-8-6-on-centos-4-5-with-readline-and-openssl/113874/4 "2007-09-06T00:34:23Z")

</div>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----  
Hash: SHA1

James B. wrote:

> sigh. sigh…

I basically gave up trying to add open-source packages to RPM-based  
package management systems for just this reason. Either you stay within  
the repository system, or you don’t. It’s that simple. I haven’t tried  
.deb-based systems recently, but the last time I did, I had similar  
problems.

It’s a bit better with Gentoo, since the packaging system is _designed_  
around source packages. The Gentoo Ruby herd is pretty active and most  
gems that are at all popular – rake, rspec, rails, hpricot, etc. – are  
packaged and show up in Gentoo “testing” within a few days of them  
hitting the Gem repository.

If you need to stay with CentOS for some reason, at least upgrade to  
CentOS 5 if you can. I forget which Ruby is there – it’s either 1.8.5  
or 1.8.6. Or switch to Fedora 7 – it’s much more up to date and has  
many more tested packages than CentOS or its RHEL parent.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----  
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux)  
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - [http://enigmail.mozdev.org](http://enigmail.mozdev.org)

iD8DBQFG3y6H8fKMegVjSM8RAvMxAJ4wiq6x1OQLsF/OtdirwpDYRgUuoQCfdVpb  
hkZunr4MmjjAXpoWjUQFyFE=  
=T+aR  
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d2c977/32.png) [@byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/byrnejb)\
**Post date:** [September 7, 2007, 7:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/compiling-ruby-1-8-6-on-centos-4-5-with-readline-and-openssl/113874/5 "2007-09-07T19:41:23Z")

</div>

Phil wrote:

> > problems.  
> > Or you use checkinstall. 😉  
> > [http://checkinstall.izto.org/](http://checkinstall.izto.org/)

That bit of info was worth posting to the list regardless of my other  
problems. I haven’t got it worjking yet, but I am getting closer.

Thank you.