Installing RoR for a Newbie is a nightmare

Rails
1

Hi,

I’m a newbie who’s tried over a half dozen times now to install the
full Ruby and All-in-One RoR app for my Windows XP machine.
Frustratingly, I haven’t been able to ever correctly get the programs
to load and work. I’ve tried the RoR site, youtube tutorials, and
other assorted websites for an easy to follow and ACCURATE
description. Often times the problem is in getting gem to load, or
getting the application to work, or other assorted problems that a
newbie like myself might not be able to troubleshoot. I’ve also tried
connecting to the RoR community using the IRC but to no avail. Should
I just quit before ever having really begun? I’m stubborn so I’ll
probably keep at it, but I’d love to hear of any good resources if you
know of any.

Thanks,

Squashua

2

On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 6:46 PM, squashua [email protected]
wrote:

newbie like myself might not be able to troubleshoot. I’ve also tried
connecting to the RoR community using the IRC but to no avail. Should
I just quit before ever having really begun? I’m stubborn so I’ll
probably keep at it, but I’d love to hear of any good resources if you
know of any.

Hi, you’ll need to much more detail about the issues that you’re having
for people of this group to better assist you. For example, when you
try install Ruby and/or All-in-One RoR app, what steps have you taken
and what issues/errors are you seeing?

-Conrad

3

squashua wrote:

Hi,

I’m a newbie who’s tried over a half dozen times now to install the
full Ruby and All-in-One RoR app for my Windows XP machine.
…

Since you are on Windwos, have you tried InstantRails?

http://instantrails.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl

InstantRails is brilliant, as it does not require any installation. You
just unzip the package into a folder (e.g. C:\instantrails) and run the
“instantrails.exe”.

It loads its own MySQL database and through it you open up a console
with all nessecary environment variables (path, etc) loaded.

When you quit the instantrails.exe all server processes are
automatically closed.

if you ever need to “uninstall” instantrails - just delete the folder.

Try it - I never had any problems with it. Post questions here, if you
experience any.

  • Carsten
4

Thanks Conrad,

So, for example.
but
1.I downloaded Ruby and stored on my C drive
2.then I downloaded RubyGems. I tried using the command line to
extract Gems (per instructions: ruby setup.rb) but that didn’t work. I
seem to have problems with command line btw. No matter, I found the
RubyGems.exe file and ran it by double clicking. Ok so far, I think.
3. Instructions state to install rails via command line with “gem
install rails” (I’m within the Ruby directory cuz that’s where gem is
stored) but I get an error message that says: “gem is not recognized
as an internal or external command, operable program or batch
file”…still no matter (perhaps) because I saw that something already
loaded rails into another directory
…so to this point the installation is not going according to RoR’s
download instructions
4. assuming that I have Ruby, RubyGems, and Rails, it appears to me I
should move onto the next step: creating an application skeleton. but
I don’t understand what i’m supposed to do with the instructions:

rails path/to/your/new/application
cd path/to/your/new/application
ruby script/server

What is that command doing? What’s my new application? Is there an
example of path/to/your/new/application is supposed to look like or am
I suppsed to type exactly what’s above (which doesn’t seem right to
me)?

…so that’s as far as I’ve gotten. At this point I don’t know if
steps 2 and 3 were successful and I don’t feel I’m ready for step 4.
I’ve found this process confusing and would like to give the site’s
content manager some feedback that there could be more helpful
instructions (for me, at least). : )

Thanks!

Squashua

5

On Jan 3, 9:38 am, “Ethan Gunderson” [email protected] wrote:

I would stay away from Instant Rails if you can. It may be good
starting out, but it is no longer under active development, so you may
run into some serious issues down the road.

I think InstantRails is actually a great way to install Ruby and Rails
on a Windows machine, even though it hasn’t been updated since the end
of 2007. I still use it for Rails development on Windows. You can use
it to install a working Rails 2.0 system and then upgrade to the
newest Rails from there.

I believe these would be the steps to get Rails working and up-to-
date, although I admit I didn’t just try this:

  1. Install and run InstantRails
  2. Launch a command prompt from InstantRails
  3. gem update --system
  4. gem update rails
6

I would stay away from Instant Rails if you can. It may be good
starting out, but it is no longer under active development, so you may
run into some serious issues down the road.

Here is the tutorial I followed to manually get ruby/gems/rails up and
running on a vista machine:

http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/RailsOnWindows

Hope it helps!

Ethan Gunderson

On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 8:57 AM, Carsten G.

7

I didn’t really read through everyone’s suggestions but it may be even
more helpful to get a good Linux distro, like Ubuntu. It’s fairly easy
to install and that way you won’t muck up your Windows installation
either. Plus, there are TONS of tutorials on how to install rails on
Ubuntu or another flavor of Linux. If you have a Mac at your disposal
it would be the trendy way to go too! But, Linux works just as good.
Not to mention, using Linux will force you to become more
knowledgeable about the underlinings of your entire stack (the
software that drives your product). It’s definitely a good thing.

Now, learn Ruby.

8

Have you tried one click installer for windows?
http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/47082/ruby186-27_rc2.exe
You don’t need to install rubygems then, you can simply run cmd and
‘gem install rails’

9

BMorearty wrote:

I think InstantRails is actually a great way to install Ruby and Rails
on a Windows machine, even though it hasn’t been updated since the end
of 2007. I still use it for Rails development on Windows. You can use
it to install a working Rails 2.0 system and then upgrade to the
newest Rails from there.

I totally agree with you. I used InstantRails with the newest Rails
releases up until july (where I switched to Ubuntu instead of Windows).
I had no problems with upgrading Rails - so I would still recomment
InstantRails. I have not seen any other package that is so easy to use.

  • Carsten
10

We do an All in One installer: Ruby, gems, Rails, MySQL and, optionally
our IDE, Ruby In Steel (either a free or commercial edition), including
(optionally) a free version of Visual Studio.

http://www.sapphiresteel.com/spip?page=download

best wishes

Huw C.
SapphireSteel Software
http://www.sapphiresteel.com

11

Sorry, but I still don’t understand step 3. You wrote:

"Now, you’ll need to add the parent directory ruby.exe and gem.exe to
your PATH. For now, you can go to the location gem.exe and perform
the following to install the current version of rails.

gem install rails

or

gem.exe install rails"

I don’t know how to add a parent directory. Do I just drag and drop
the ruby and rails directories into one larger directory? Do I go to
the directory, C:\rails\ruby and then run the command(s) you provided?
Because I get the same error statement. In addition, I don’t see
ruby.exe and gem.exe anywhere, but then I already installed them in
steps 1 and 2. Didn’t I? So why then do I need to reinstall the two
executables? I think I need more context to know what I’m supposed to
do. Again, I"m sorry but this step is not as straightforward as more
experienced programmers may think. : )

-squashua

12

On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 2:03 PM, squashua [email protected]
wrote:

HI Conrad,

Unsure if I’m supposed to reply to you or the group or both (shows how
much of a newbie I am). Please let me know if I should just reply to
the group in the future…Here’s what I posted to the group:

Please always post to the group so that others can follow the thread
unless
someone
says otherwise.

Thanks Conrad,

So, for example.
but
1.I downloaded Ruby and stored on my C drive

OK

2.then I downloaded RubyGems. I tried using the command line to
extract Gems (per instructions: ruby setup.rb) but that didn’t work. I
seem to have problems with command line btw. No matter, I found the
RubyGems.exe file and ran it by double clicking. Ok so far, I think.

OK

  1. Instructions state to install rails via command line with “gem
    install rails” (I’m within the Ruby directory cuz that’s where gem is
    stored) but I get an error message that says: “gem is not recognized
    as an internal or external command, operable program or batch
    file”…still no matter (perhaps) because I saw that something already
    loaded rails into another directory
    …so to this point the installation is not going according to RoR’s
    download instructions

Now, you’ll need to add the parent directory ruby.exe and gem.exe to
your PATH. For now, you can go to the location gem.exe and perform
the following to install the current version of rails.

gem install rails

or

gem.exe install rails

  1. assuming that I have Ruby, RubyGems, and Rails, it appears to me I
    should move onto the next step: creating an application skeleton. but
    I don’t understand what i’m supposed to do with the instructions:

rails path/to/your/new/application

The above command creates a rails application.

cd path/to/your/new/application

The above command changes your current directory to
the root of the rails application you created in the previous
step.

ruby script/server

The above command starts the web server.

What is that command doing? What’s my new application? Is there an
example of path/to/your/new/application is supposed to look like or am
I suppsed to type exactly what’s above (which doesn’t seem right to
me)?

Please see my above comments. Also, I would recommend completing
the following tutorial starting with step 3.2:

http://guides.rubyonrails.org/getting_started_with_rails.html

13

I have to echo someone from above, why not try out a Linux distro
instead. Whenever you are going to be deploying your app, it is
probably going onto a box with some distro of Linux on it. I always
like developing on a system as close to my deployment as possible,
which means Ubuntu on my laptop, desktop, and any server I use.

So far, that has been the best for me.

14

On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 3:06 PM, squashua [email protected]
wrote:

experienced programmers may think. : )

-squashua

Hi, you’ll need to verify what has and hasn’t been installed on your
system.
Also, you’ll need to determine where they were installed so that you can
add
it to your PATH. The following link shows you how to update your PATH
on
Windows:

http://www.nerdydork.com/update-windows-path-without-rebooting.html

-Conrad

15

Hi,
Yes, I tried instant Rails and was unable to get that to work too.
*sigh
I found this good tutorial but when I do it I can never get my system
to recognize Ruby, no matter how many times I reinstall.
I think I’m going to give up for now. I guess I need someone to sit
down with me and walk through the install.
Thanks to all,
squashua

16

Try Instant Rails, just download & unzip!

Cheers, Sazima

17

Rails is largely cmdline driven, you’ll have to get used to that.

If I’m not mistaken, Netbeans does a lot of these things for you
through its graphical interface, so you might feel more comfortable
using it. But remeber, unless your host provider is based on Windows
(what I seriously doubt), you’ll have to use the cmdline anyway…

Cheers, Sazima

18

Has anyone pointed out the root problem here is Windows?

Install either CygWin or Linux, and spend more time programming and less
time
futzing with the platform!!

19

Hi, I would recommend giving InstantRails another try. What issue
were you having InstantRails?

-Conrad

Sent from my iPhone

20

Hi everyone,

First off, thanks so much for your interest and help. I sat down with
a colleague today and in 5 minutes he had me up and going. It appears
with my installs and reinstalls it created a ruby folder
(rubygems-1.3.1) and a bin folder. Apparently it’s the bin folder
where I wanted my PATH to go and not the other. Setting the PATH to
bin and then running the command line scripts made everything work.

So thanks again!

Sincerely,

Squashua