Running both Ruby 1.8 and 1.9 on same windows machine

Ruby
1

I want to try out Ruby 1.9, but don’t want to go whole hog since I have
a lot of programs that run just fine with 1.8. I also use RMagick,
which seems not to work with 1.9 yet.

Can I have both versions of Ruby installed in the Windows environment,
but have 1.8 be the default for running Ruby programs? Are there any
tricks or tips for doing this? I’m worried about conflict/errors that
may arise.

–Alex DeCaria

2

On 17/2/2010 11:17 AM, Alex DeCaria wrote:

I want to try out Ruby 1.9, but don’t want to go whole hog since I have
a lot of programs that run just fine with 1.8. I also use RMagick,
which seems not to work with 1.9 yet.

Can I have both versions of Ruby installed in the Windows environment,
but have 1.8 be the default for running Ruby programs? Are there any
tricks or tips for doing this? I’m worried about conflict/errors that
may arise.

When I asked a very similar question, the response I got from Phillip
Gawlowski was:

Just download and install 1.9 from rubyinstaller.org. It installs Ruby
1.9 in its own directory by default, so that 1.8.x and 1.9 can coexist
happily.
You can then install pik, for example (gem install pik), which allows
you to switch Ruby interpreters (for one console session only) on the
fly, and you can run your tests.
This, sans pik, is my own setup, and it works rather well.

…and it works great for me so far.
Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Mohit.
17/2/2010 | 11:42 AM.

3

On Feb 17, 4:17 am, Alex DeCaria [email protected]
wrote:

I want to try out Ruby 1.9, but don’t want to go whole hog since I have
a lot of programs that run just fine with 1.8. I also use RMagick,
which seems not to work with 1.9 yet.

Can I have both versions of Ruby installed in the Windows environment,
but have 1.8 be the default for running Ruby programs? Are there any
tricks or tips for doing this? I’m worried about conflict/errors that
may arise.

Just download RC2 version of RubyInstaller for 1.9:

It will install by default into “Ruby19” at the root of your system
drive (generally C:)

By default, it will not change the settings of your environment, and
you can start it from the customized command prompt shortcut that is
created inside All Programs menu.

HTH,

4

Is there an .exe file for 1.9 ?

I want to try out 1.9 on windows, but I am very much used to the old
.exe

I am a bit shy to fiddle with MinGW

5

As far as installing and updating Ruby gems for the 1.9 version, if I do
that from the 1.9 command window that I open, will it then install them
in the 1.9 directory and not affect the 1.8 version? So, I can keep two
versions of gems separate as well?
–Alex

6

On Feb 17, 2010, at 7:06 AM, Alex DeCaria wrote:

As far as installing and updating Ruby gems for the 1.9 version, if I do
that from the 1.9 command window that I open, will it then install them
in the 1.9 directory and not affect the 1.8 version? So, I can keep two
versions of gems separate as well?
–Alex

Yes, that is the case. I run both 1.8.6 and 1.9.1 on my Windows boxes
with completely separate gem installations. I did not have to do any
extra work to accomplish this. The rubyinstallers are really great!

cr

7

On Feb 17, 2:13 pm, Marc H. [email protected] wrote:

Is there an .exe file for 1.9 ?

By exe you mean installer?

Pointed before:

I want to try out 1.9 on windows, but I am very much used to the old
exe

Then I would recommend download binaries from here:

http://www.garbagecollect.jp/ruby/mswin32/en/download/release.html

And follow instructions from here:

http://www.garbagecollect.jp/ruby/mswin32/en/documents/install.html

Try locate the specific versions of these components and get it
working.

The reasoning behind there is no One-Click Installer for Ruby 1.9 is
described here:

http://wiki.github.com/oneclick/rubyinstaller/faq

And more specifically here:

http://wiki.github.com/oneclick/rubyinstaller/faq#bundled_short
http://wiki.github.com/oneclick/rubyinstaller/faq#bundled_long

I am a bit shy to fiddle with MinGW

There is no need to fiddle with MinGW, read the tutorials:

http://wiki.github.com/oneclick/rubyinstaller/tutorials

And one that even has pretty pictures:

http://geeksharp.com/2010/01/18/windows-ruby-native-gems-1-9-1/

Cheers,