# Total noob with a silly question (i'm sure)

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/total-noob-with-a-silly-question-im-sure/118696>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [October 30, 2007, 6:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/total-noob-with-a-silly-question-im-sure/118696 "2007-10-30T06:27:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Gareth](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/ba8739/32.png) [@Gareth](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Gareth)\
**Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 6:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/total-noob-with-a-silly-question-im-sure/118696/1 "2007-10-30T06:27:33Z")

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Hi guys,

I’ve been looking at ROR for a wee while. I waited for leopard to get  
started as I knew that it was built into leopard. I can get it up and  
running fine - in terms of creating a project, launching mongrel and  
opening up textmate with the project.

But my problem exists with Mysql. I actually thought Mysql was built  
into osx if you installed the developer tools. Is this not the case?

So, I went and d/loaded the package from [mysql.com](http://mysql.com). Good-o. So the  
preference pane doesn’t work, but that’s cool cos I’ve read that this  
is the case in leopard. But now I’m trying to install the ruby gem  
mysql thing. My questions begin there:

1. Is the ruby gem mysql (2.7) actually the mysql program (i.e. does  
it overwrite or default over the installed v5.0)? Or is it just a  
package to allow ruby to “talk” to mysql?

2. How do I use mysql? Anyone got a good link? I don’t know if it’s  
installed properly or how to start it etc… so I was needing a really  
simple beginners guide or something.

Thanks in advance

Gareth

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Gareth](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/ba8739/32.png) [@Gareth](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Gareth)\
**Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 7:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/total-noob-with-a-silly-question-im-sure/118696/2 "2007-10-30T07:47:37Z")

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Hi Gareth,

MySQL gem is a ruby gem, which allow ruby to talk to the MySQL…  
I dont know about whether Leopard comes with inbuilt MySQL… but you  
could  
download latest community version from [mysql.com](http://mysql.com)  
for OSX. It’s a dmg… and pretty straight forward. You may have to set  
the  
path for mysql… in your bash profile… so that you could try  
mysql from command line…

HTH…  
Anil W.

On 10/30/07, Gareth [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> into osx if you installed the developer tools. Is this not the case?  
> 2. How do I use mysql? Anyone got a good link? I don’t know if it’s  
> installed properly or how to start it etc… so I was needing a really  
> simple beginners guide or something.
> 
> Thanks in advance
> 
> Gareth
> 
> >

–  
Anil

> **[Anil Wadghule](https://anilwadghule.com)**
>
> Anil Wadghule - Elixir, Phoenix Software Developer