# Transform Rails site into DVD

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/transform-rails-site-into-dvd/63212>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [June 13, 2006, 8:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/transform-rails-site-into-dvd/63212 "2006-06-13T08:27:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/848f3c/32.png) [@bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bartb)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2006, 8:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/transform-rails-site-into-dvd/63212/1 "2006-06-13T08:27:50Z")

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I’m considering implementing a PHP based site that display videos with  
quite  
some database logic to Rails. Now we were considering publishing the  
site  
on DVD too.  
Is that possible (e.g. with RubyScript2Exe)? How fast is database  
performance going to be? Currently there are movies inside the database  
but  
we can extract them if necessary. The database scheme is quite large and  
the number of rows are around 10.000 for multiple tables. The system  
heavily relies on joins of multiple tables.  
We are also considering running the dynamic (database based) version on  
the  
site and reducing the DVD version to something more static. That would  
work  
if we strip off some heavy search logic. Would that be reasonable in  
Rails,  
can some plugin help me generating static pages?  
Can those two solutions be combined? So we would run a dynamic website  
and  
then once in a while in some magic way we can generate an up to date DVD  
from the site. Is that possible?  
If you need more details on the site I’ll be happy to provide them, this  
project means a lot to me.

Bart

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/848f3c/32.png) [@bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bartb)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2006, 5:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/transform-rails-site-into-dvd/63212/2 "2006-06-13T17:23:20Z")

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rubyScript2Exe and tart2ruby work just fine for my small apps… you  
can  
even set them up so that the logs, database, and other files are stored  
in a  
separate place, so the user can have data that persists.

It’s pretty easy to do, too.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/848f3c/32.png) [@bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bartb)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2006, 3:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/transform-rails-site-into-dvd/63212/3 "2006-06-13T15:21:39Z")

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For the most part running a database driven web app from a CD or DVD  
just  
isn’t feasable.

There is a solution for this, but honestly the usability of it is  
questionable.

Using a knoppix derivitave called Lamppix you can place a fully  
functional  
web server on CD and allow your customer to boot their computer to a  
preset  
linux environment where you have preprogrammed your web application.  
This  
environment gives you a fully functional database and web application  
environment.

The user can peruse your application and make any changes to the  
database  
but the database will be restored to it’s preprogrammed state when the  
system is rebooted. Any changes the you want to persist would have to  
be  
saved elsewhere.

This approach is about the only way I know of do have a live, dynamic,  
website on cd, but is really only useful for demonstrating applications.

To complicate matters the lamppix distro is geared for php development,  
not  
to ruby and would have to be customized. Which is a skill in and of  
itself

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/848f3c/32.png) [@bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bartb)\
**Post date:** [June 14, 2006, 4:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/transform-rails-site-into-dvd/63212/4 "2006-06-14T16:40:57Z")

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Do you have any idea if these solutions scale? Up to large databases?

Thanks for the information  
Bart

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/848f3c/32.png) [@bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bartb)\
**Post date:** [June 14, 2006, 5:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/transform-rails-site-into-dvd/63212/5 "2006-06-14T17:01:14Z")

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Scale to what? You’re running it off of a DVD or CD drive. The  
bottleneck  
will be data retrieval from an optical device. Your database will be a  
fixed  
size. You’ll only have one user (if running off of a cd).

I don’t know your project so I can’t say it it will scale. You need to  
answer the “will it scale” question for yourself by trying it.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/848f3c/32.png) [@bartb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bartb)\
**Post date:** [June 14, 2006, 4:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/transform-rails-site-into-dvd/63212/6 "2006-06-14T16:51:03Z")

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R Sherman wrote:

> For the most part running a database driven web app from a CD or DVD just  
> isn’t feasable.

Could you explain why? Do you believe the speeds will be too low? Do you  
think the database will respond to slow?

> There is a solution for this, but honestly the usability of it is  
> questionable.

Lamppix is not a solution, we want this solution to run cross-platform  
without rebooting…

Bart