# Strange error when installing mysql

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strange-error-when-installing-mysql/106922>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [June 15, 2007, 12:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strange-error-when-installing-mysql/106922 "2007-06-15T12:06:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Kristian\_Frost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/51bf81/32.png) [@Kristian\_Frost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Kristian_Frost)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2007, 12:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strange-error-when-installing-mysql/106922/1 "2007-06-15T12:06:12Z")

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Hello everyone,

I am getting this error when i am trying to install the mysql driver.

I do the following: sudo gem install mysql, i chose number 3 and then i  
get this error:

Building native extensions. This could take a while…  
extconf.rb:1:in `require’: no such file to load – mkmf (LoadError)  
from extconf.rb:1

ERROR: While executing gem … (RuntimeError)  
ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.  
Gem files will remain installed in /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mysql-2.7  
for inspection.

Results logged to /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mysql-2.7/gem\_make.out

Any ideas how to fix this?

Thanks in advance.

Regards

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Kristian\_Frost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/51bf81/32.png) [@Kristian\_Frost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Kristian_Frost)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2007, 12:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strange-error-when-installing-mysql/106922/2 "2007-06-15T12:35:23Z")

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You’re missing the ruby development headers. If this is a Debian based  
system, or Ubuntu, you need to install the ruby1.8-dev package (and  
libmysqlclient15-dev for mysql itself).

Regards,

Jochem Kossen