# Minimal ruby install

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/minimal-ruby-install/158663>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [January 26, 2009, 4:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/minimal-ruby-install/158663 "2009-01-26T16:07:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rickf](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/9e8a1a/32.png) [@rickf](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rickf)\
**Post date:** [January 26, 2009, 4:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/minimal-ruby-install/158663/1 "2009-01-26T16:07:28Z")

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Hi All,

I submitted a similar request over on the rails forum, but feel this is  
probably the more appropriate place, sorry for any duplication.

Is there an embedded version of ruby available? Or is there a way to  
determine the required libraries for a rails application to make a  
minimal footprint distribution of the ruby and rails libs etc? Bearing  
in mind low memory usage and disk space considerations.

As a little background, we deploy on server class machines and are  
looking into thin clients and embedded possibilities.

Finally, if I make my own minimal distribution I certainly do not want  
to violate any licensing etc…any concerns here?

Any comments or guidance would be appreciated.

thanks,  
Rick

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**Author:** ![rickf](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/9e8a1a/32.png) [@rickf](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rickf)\
**Post date:** [January 26, 2009, 5:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/minimal-ruby-install/158663/2 "2009-01-26T17:15:21Z")

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On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 12:05 AM, Rick F.  
[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> As a little background, we deploy on server class machines and are  
> looking into thin clients and embedded possibilities.
> 
> Finally, if I make my own minimal distribution I certainly do not want  
> to violate any licensing etc…any concerns here?
> 
> Any comments or guidance would be appreciated.

minimal footprint and rails?  
just did a quick grep and rails depends on around 45 libraries from  
stdlib and pretty much every byte of ruby core (which is why it’s a  
nice testcase for new ruby implementations), are you sure you don’t  
want to go for something more lightweight?

^ manveru

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**Author:** ![rickf](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/9e8a1a/32.png) [@rickf](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rickf)\
**Post date:** [January 26, 2009, 5:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/minimal-ruby-install/158663/3 "2009-01-26T17:25:28Z")

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> just did a quick grep and rails depends on around 45 libraries from  
> stdlib and pretty much every byte of ruby core (which is why it’s a  
> nice testcase for new ruby implementations), are you sure you don’t  
> want to go for something more lightweight?
> 
> ^ manveru

Right…good question. At a minimum I need to support DB access and  
remote connectivity on the thin clients or embedded systems. The remote  
connectivity can be me writing a multi-threaded server and processing  
commands in a web service-ish way or including a lightweight HTTP server  
if practical. The DB access could be DBI based stuff as well versus  
using Active Record.

So one approach is compiling Ruby I suppose for each platform required,  
including a minimal set of libs etc.

I am really looking for input to see what I am getting myself involved  
in. It may be that using Ruby for this implementation is not ideal.

I would certainly consider different technologies, I am involved with  
Ruby right now an was curious if it is practical.

Thanks for the input,  
Rick

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rickf](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/9e8a1a/32.png) [@rickf](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rickf)\
**Post date:** [January 26, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/minimal-ruby-install/158663/4 "2009-01-26T18:29:33Z")

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Rick F. wrote:

> I would certainly consider different technologies, I am involved with  
> Ruby right now an was curious if it is practical.

I love Ruby, but for embedded applications you might check out Lua. I  
don’t know if Lua will have all the libraries you need, though.

> **[The Programming Language Lua](http://www.lua.org/)**
>
> Official web site of the Lua language

> **[Lua (programming language)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lua_(programming_language))**
>
> Lua (/ˈluːə/ LOO-ə; from Portuguese: lua \[ˈlu(w)ɐ\] meaning moon) is a lightweight, high-level, multi-paradigm programming language designed primarily for embedded use in applications. Lua is cross-platform, since the interpreter of compiled bytecode is written in ANSI C, and Lua has a relatively simple C API to embed it into applications.
> Lua originated in 1993 as a language for extending software applications to meet the increasing demand for customization at the time. It provided the basic f...