# Interesting ruby bootstrap experience on Windows **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [November 19, 2007, 1:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/interesting-ruby-bootstrap-experience-on-windows/120597 "2007-11-19T01:50:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jay-levitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/a88e57/32.png) [@jay-levitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jay-levitt)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2007, 1:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/interesting-ruby-bootstrap-experience-on-windows/120597/1 "2007-11-19T01:50:44Z")
I figured I’d try running the tests that Ron J. is running, to see what happens on my Windows XP machine. I realized that I haven’t actually used my win32 install in a while; it was still on 1.8.4 and rubygems couldn’t even self-update from 0.9.0. So I just blew it away and redownloaded. I’ve made a huge mistake. Problem #1: There are (or were?) a lot of mirrors for Ruby downloads, but they seem to be gone as of the (otherwise really pretty) [ruby-lang.org](http://ruby-lang.org) redesign. So I had to downloaded it from the main site - and, judging by the download speed, that hurt the site even more. Problem #2: I remembered reading here that the one-click installer was outdated, so I figured I’d just download the base install and build it up myself. (I’ve made a huge mistake.) Problem #3: Rubygems needs zlib. [Ruby-lang.org](http://Ruby-lang.org) used to have that for download, but it’s not there anymore. Downloaded it from [zlib.net](http://zlib.net), but there’s no zlib.dll in there; just zlibwapi.dll now. I couldn’t find any mention of that on Google, but I did find people saying they had downloaded the old DLL and put it in c:\ruby\bin (not lib!), so after some error and error, I renamed zlibwapi.dll to zlib.dll, and put it in c:\ruby\bin. Problem #4: ruby setup.rb now gets past zlib, but crashes with a segfault! It’s at this point that I realize that the Ruby Windows binary on rubylang-org is also out of date; it doesn’t list the patchlevel, but it’s dated 2007-03-13, which I think was the initial 1.8.6 release. OK, so maybe there’s a bug that the current zlib or gems hits. So, bunch more Googling, no mentions on comp.lang.ruby, but I eventually stumble across www.garbagecollect.jp/ruby, which has mswin32 builds available. More slow download across transatlantic links, more unzipping, and: Problem #5: same crash. Back to the zlib page. Ah hah… I had searched the page for “Windows”, but the version of the DLL I apparently want is NOT the one called “zlib for Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP/2003 (DLL version, plus related utilities)”. It’s “zlib compiled DLL, version 1.2.3, zipfile format”. I see my error. I replace the zlibwapi.dll-named-zlib.dll with zlib1.dll-named-zlib.dll, and now, all is well. So… since Ruby’s a community effort, what can I do to help solve problems 1-5, other than posting this for Google to index? ---
**Author:** ![jay-levitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/a88e57/32.png) [@jay-levitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jay-levitt)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2007, 2:25am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/interesting-ruby-bootstrap-experience-on-windows/120597/2 "2007-11-19T02:25:49Z")
On Nov 18, 9:45 pm, Jay L. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > they seem to be gone as of the (otherwise really pretty) [ruby-lang.org](http://ruby-lang.org) > redesign. So I had to downloaded it from the main site - and, judging by > the download speed, that hurt the site even more. Yes, the one-point of code download is problematic. you can also download the win32 builds from GarbageCollect [1]. > Problem #2: I remembered reading here that the one-click installer was > outdated, so I figured I’d just download the base install and build it up > myself. Not true, you should have done a google search before: One-Click installer, 1.8.6-26 Release Candidate 2 (2007-10-29) – not so old: [http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group\_id=167](http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=167) > (I’ve made a huge mistake.) > > Problem #3: Rubygems needs zlib. [Ruby-lang.org](http://Ruby-lang.org) used to have that for > download, but it’s not there anymore. Downloaded it from [zlib.net](http://zlib.net), but > there’s no zlib.dll in there; just zlibwapi.dll now. I couldn’t find any > mention of that on Google, but I did find people saying they had downloaded > the old DLL and put it in c:\ruby\bin (not lib!), so after some error and > error, I renamed zlibwapi.dll to zlib.dll, and put it in c:\ruby\bin. You should have to search better for this: ruby-mswin32 will bring you better search results. also checking the source code for One-Click ruby installer will be a good start, since it downloads the files needed to build itself. > So… since Ruby’s a community effort, what can I do to help solve problems > 1-5, other than posting this for Google to index? One-Click installer maybe? or maybe you can do it yourself with mingw? Anyway the problems you list require you some compilation, since ruby- zlib extension that fix the whole zlib problems need a compiler. We all know the state of Ruby on Windows is problematic, and I hope we can all contribute to fix it. Please try One-Click installer and let us know if you need anything 🙂 [1] [Index of /ruby/mswin32/en](http://www.garbagecollect.jp/ruby/mswin32/en/) Luis L. ---
**Author:** ![jay-levitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/a88e57/32.png) [@jay-levitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jay-levitt)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2007, 2:51am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/interesting-ruby-bootstrap-experience-on-windows/120597/3 "2007-11-27T02:51:09Z")
On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 17:22:15 -0800 (PST), Luis L. wrote: > [http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group\_id=167](http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=167) > I saw that, but I think I was fooled by the 1.8.6-26 moniker, which (of > course!) must be older than p111… I can understand why you can’t just use the Ruby version (the OCI includes things other than just Ruby), but in that case, it would probably better to pick an entirely different version number that can’t be confused. This is release 26, so I’d suggest just calling it that - One Click Installer Release 26. Or, well, anything BUT 1.8.6-26. > > So… since Ruby’s a community effort, what can I do to help solve problems > > 1-5, other than posting this for Google to index? > > One-Click installer maybe? or maybe you can do it yourself with mingw? > Anyway the problems you list require you some compilation, since ruby- > zlib extension that fix the whole zlib problems need a compiler. Well, but I ended up solving it without having to compile anything; I just needed to figure out what pieces I needed and where I could find them. What can I do to: 1. Help update the ruby-lang site to show the mirrors again, 2. Ditto to get the current Ruby binary up there, or at least linked up there, 3. Ditto for zlib