# Howto install RoR 2.0 on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/howto-install-ror-2-0-on-mac-os-x-10-5-leopard/124992>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [January 4, 2008, 12:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/howto-install-ror-2-0-on-mac-os-x-10-5-leopard/124992 "2008-01-04T12:15:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jabo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/aeb1de/32.png) [@jabo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jabo)\
**Post date:** [January 4, 2008, 12:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/howto-install-ror-2-0-on-mac-os-x-10-5-leopard/124992/1 "2008-01-04T12:15:54Z")

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Is there a (complete, accurate and working) guide  
on how to install Ruby On Rails on Apple Mac OS X Leopard ?

- locomotive does not work
- all the guides I found out there do not work !

If not could you please detail how you installed it  
on your MacIntel Leopard machine ?

Thank you so much !

(I thought it would be easy, but right now I am stuck even considering  
downgrading to Tiger…)

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**Author:** ![jabo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/aeb1de/32.png) [@jabo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jabo)\
**Post date:** [January 4, 2008, 1:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/howto-install-ror-2-0-on-mac-os-x-10-5-leopard/124992/2 "2008-01-04T13:19:54Z")

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Here’s the official FAQ on RoR in Leopard:  
[http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/ruby/wiki/FAQ](http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/ruby/wiki/FAQ)

Here’s the quick and dirty:

Step 1:  
sudo gem update --system

Step 2:  
sudo gem install rails

Step 3:  
There is no step 3

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**Author:** ![jabo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/aeb1de/32.png) [@jabo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jabo)\
**Post date:** [January 4, 2008, 1:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/howto-install-ror-2-0-on-mac-os-x-10-5-leopard/124992/3 "2008-01-04T13:20:30Z")

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On Jan 4, 2008 12:15 PM, Ja Bo [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> Is there a (complete, accurate and working) guide  
> on how to install Ruby On Rails on Apple Mac OS X Leopard ?

Rails comes preinstalled on Leopard, but the preinstalled version is  
1.2.3. However, RubyGems is also preinstalled, and you can use gem to  
upgrade to rails 2.  
gem update --system (updates RubyGems itself)  
gem update (updates all your gems, including rails)

rails 2 depends on a new gem, activeresource, that rails 1.2 didn’t, so:  
gem install activeresource

You can find your gems in /usr/lib/ruby/user-gems/ (which is actually  
a symlink to /Library/Ruby/Gems)

As far as rails is concerned updating the preinstalled gems is more or  
less what I did on my mac mini, which I did a clean Leopard install  
on. On my macbook, I upgraded from Tiger, where I had the rails stack  
set up according to the guide at hivelogic.

> **[Dan Benjamin](https://danbenjamin.com)**
>
> Dan Benjamin's personal website.

After the upgrade to Leopard, mysql wasn’t working, so I built it from  
source, following this guide:

> **[Dan Benjamin](https://danbenjamin.com)**
>
> Dan Benjamin's personal website.

I haven’t checked if mysql released a leopard installer since.

Hope that helps

- Martin

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**Author:** ![jabo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/aeb1de/32.png) [@jabo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jabo)\
**Post date:** [January 4, 2008, 1:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/howto-install-ror-2-0-on-mac-os-x-10-5-leopard/124992/4 "2008-01-04T13:24:00Z")

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Oh and BTW those steps are to upgrade the existing Ruby on Rails that  
already exist on Mac OS X Leopard. Leopard comes pre-installed with  
Ruby on Rails. It was originally Rails 1.2.3 and one of the Apple  
software updates brought it up to 1.2.6. But Rails 2.0.2 is a gem  
install away. You don’t need to install your own Ruby or RubyGems.  
That stuff is all there and can be easily updated to the latest  
versions as shown in my previous post.

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**Author:** ![jabo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/aeb1de/32.png) [@jabo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jabo)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2008, 6:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/howto-install-ror-2-0-on-mac-os-x-10-5-leopard/124992/5 "2008-01-09T06:50:30Z")

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Absolute beginner here … absolute … never even used the terminal  
window until today.

when I tried to update the pre-installed Ruby 1.8 it got to  
"Attempting remote update of acts\_as\_ferret and I got this error:

ERROR: While executing gem … (Gem::FilePermissionError)  
You don’t have write permissions into the /usr/bin directory.

So I went Go \> Go to Folder /usr/bin, clicked Get Info, unlocked it,  
added me and administrators to the list of people who can read and  
write, went back to terminal, punched in ‘gem update’ and got the same  
error.

Any tips? Thanks.

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**Author:** ![jabo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/aeb1de/32.png) [@jabo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jabo)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2008, 7:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/howto-install-ror-2-0-on-mac-os-x-10-5-leopard/124992/6 "2008-01-09T07:00:26Z")

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Don’t go altering permissions on folders like that.

First, run Disk Utility and repair permissions.

Ok, now that you’ve done that, fire up terminal.

Type:

sudo gem install acts\_as\_ferret

Enter your password and you’re golden.

The permissions are your protection against making really, REALLY bad  
mistakes. Use them wisely.

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**Author:** ![jabo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/aeb1de/32.png) [@jabo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jabo)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2008, 7:51am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/howto-install-ror-2-0-on-mac-os-x-10-5-leopard/124992/7 "2008-01-09T07:51:54Z")

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“Wise” and “learning new stuff” is pretty mutually exclusive for me! I  
tend to blow things up a few times to understand them 😛

Thanks for the help, I did as you said and now I’m getting the same  
thing except instead of ferret it’s capistrano.

Do I just keep typing in

sudo gem install ‘name’

when I get this error?

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**Author:** ![jabo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/aeb1de/32.png) [@jabo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jabo)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2008, 7:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/howto-install-ror-2-0-on-mac-os-x-10-5-leopard/124992/8 "2008-01-09T07:59:30Z")

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On Jan 8, 2008, at 10:50 PM, rpflorence wrote:

> Do I just keep typing in
> 
> sudo gem install ‘name’
> 
> when I get this error?

Yes. sudo gives you super user access for the duration of one command.  
The hope is that command won’t be something really destructive. Here’s  
a bit more elaboration: You typically run as a very privileged user on  
a Mac, but not a superuser (root). Even your privileged user account  
does not have default permissions to modify some of the important  
system directories.

So, for installation of MacPorts or Ruby Gems, you will have to use  
sudo. I very much recommend you never log in as root. It’s a BAD idea  
(unless you really know what you are doing and why sudo isn’t good  
enough).

Next visit to the terminal window, type:

man sudo

and you will see a little about what sudo allows you to do. Press ‘q’  
to quit the man page.
