# Unable to install thin

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unable-to-install-thin/170185>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [June 13, 2009, 11:53am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unable-to-install-thin/170185 "2009-06-13T11:53:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![fipa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/9e8a1a/32.png) [@fipa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fipa)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 11:53am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unable-to-install-thin/170185/1 "2009-06-13T11:53:17Z")

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On a newly installed Lenny server with Ruby1.8.7 and Rubygems installed  
from source (not package) and latest rails installed through rubygems

$ sudo gem1.8 install thin  
Building native extensions. This could take a while…  
ERROR: Error installing thin:  
ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

/usr/bin/ruby1.8 extconf.rb  
extconf.rb:1:in `require’: no such file to load – mkmf (LoadError)  
from extconf.rb:1

Gem files will remain installed in  
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/eventmachine-0.12.8 for inspection.  
Results logged to  
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/eventmachine-0.12.8/ext/gem\_make.out

What dependency did I miss?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![fipa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/9e8a1a/32.png) [@fipa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fipa)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 12:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unable-to-install-thin/170185/2 "2009-06-13T12:04:23Z")

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Damn Debian!

$ sudo aptitude install ruby1.8-dev

then:

$ sudo gem1.8 install rack thin