What is the best and easiest way of running Ruby on Rails on a Windows 7 machine?
I really want to learn Rails, but I haven't found any easy way of installing it on Windows 7.
Install Ubuntu 10.10 on Windows using wubi.exe. It does not require partitioning your disk. And it can be easily removed.
What is the best and easiest way of running Ruby on Rails on a Windows
7 machine?
Add a vm running Ubuntu and do your rails work on it. You will have more support than trying to deal with Windows, also, chances are you will be deploying to a Linux environment so it will put you more on the game.
Could be, but you might be ignoring for a second that this simple statement might come up with a steeped learning curve (learn a new OS, bash, a package manager, etc).
And after all that *then* you will take a look to the stuff you want to learn in the first place.
Now, as proper response to the OP: You can install RailsInstaller:
It provides an out-of-the-box experience for you to start playing with Ruby and Rails.
It bundles the initial components like Git and SQLite3, reducing the setup/configuration required for creating new applications.
Watch the screencast in the website if you're still unconvinced.
HTH,
Add a vm running Ubuntu and do your rails work on it. You will have more support than trying to deal with Windows, also, chances are you will be deploying to a Linux environment so it will put you more on the game.
Could be, but you might be ignoring for a second that this simple statement might come up with a steeped learning curve (learn a new OS, bash, a package manager, etc).
Well, they're already going to be learning a new programming language, and gem package manager, and framework conventions.... I'd assume that if they can do that, they can wiggle a mouse to the top of a screen for the menus rather than the bottom, and type slashes in the other way round :-/
Now, as proper response to the OP: You can install RailsInstaller:
You're elucidated a slightly patronising and a little riled response from me, as this line above of yours is very patronising - suggesting a VM on Windows is a *proper* response too.
It provides an out-of-the-box experience for you to start playing with Ruby and Rails.
It bundles the initial components like Git and SQLite3, reducing the setup/configuration required for creating new applications.
Good luck with all of the little bits of the nice plugins/gems that you'll want to use that *don't work* on Windows. Happy hunting when you want to deploy your app somewhere and *no one* supports Rails on Windows and you need to be familiar with the bash stuff anyway.
The majority of people that start with Rails on Windows fall into two camps: those that shrug and say "this is pointless, nothing works as the documentation says" and give up, and those that switch to Mac or some other *nix on a PC.
Don't get me wrong, I do quite admire the work that's gone into the "Rails on Windows" tutorials that were posted up over the last month, but the bottom line is that Rails *really doesn't* work well on Windows. It may be possible to run it there, but that doesn't mean you should. If anyone is learning Rails for any purpose other than curiosity, then the sooner they move to *nix the better (for them), so they may as well start there with a VM.
hmm never ran it under windows but I'm curious if using cygwin or jruby might be an option.
Other windows tools I am aware of are pik https://github.com/vertiginous/pik and IronRuby http://www.ironruby.net/
OP I'm not going to tell you to switch OSes and you have a very good question. I am curious myself of the best practice for development on the windows platform.
Keep in mind though that Ruby was built on the UNIX technologies and concepts. (matz uses debian sid if my trivia is correct). If you run into any real issues where errors are not user error consider taking a more pragmatic approach to learning rails in it's native programming environment.
But he wasn't ignoring the OP's request. The OP asked for the best rails environment, not the one with the shallowest learning curve.
Install a VM of Ubuntu or Linux and develop on that. Avoid installing Ruby or Ruby on Rails on Windows like the plague. You will be in for more trouble that it is worth trying to get everything you need to work on Windows.
B.
First of all, thank you all for your suggestions. I think I’ll finally do the switch from Windows to Ubuntu. I wanted to do it for a while, and I think it’s a good time to do it now.
Once I install Ubuntu, what should I do next?
A cautionary note, a new version of Ubuntu (11.04) has just been released, which has made major changes to the UI and still has some teething issues. I would advise an Ubuntu newcomer to install 10.10 for the moment (or even 10.04, the so called Long Term Support release).
Colin
Others have mentioned railsinstaller, which I highly recommend if you're just getting started. However, in my *personal* opinion, if you're going to get serious about Rails development, you really need some form of a *nix machine. The reason is that historically speaking, Rubyists have been somewhat...reluctant to fully test and support various ruby libraries on Windows. The architectures are just so different and all. That doesn't mean Ruby CAN'T work on Windows, just that you may wind up running into more weird "one-off" bugs than it's worth.
You can download Ubuntu 10.10 (I agree with Colin's post about 11.04 having a few potential issues since it's so new) and VMWare Player absolutely free. Use VMWare player (or there's also Oracle Virtual Box as well, either one works) to set up a new Ubuntu Linux (or there's Fedora, Gentoo, ArchLinux, etc. etc.) under Windows 7, then launch that, and do your ruby development in there.
This is the approach I'm starting to use more and more these days myself. If you have a mac, or have some hackintosh compatible hardware, you can install OS X or the hackintosh version (look for torrents and get it that way). Nobody's taking responsibility for laws broken or stuff that breaks, etc. etc. blah blah blah (damn over- lawyering).
Good luck man. If you're just getting your feet wet to see what it's like, I recommend the Rails Installer route already linked. If you're looking to get serious, go with a VM.
First of all, thank you all for your suggestions. I think I’ll finally do the switch from Windows to Ubuntu. I wanted to do it for a while, and I think it’s a good time to do it now.
Once I install Ubuntu, what should I do next?
Google for instructions on installing Ruby on Rails on Ubuntu, then if you run in to trouble post back here. But basically, you want to run the package installer (apt-get) to install ruby. Once ruby is installed you will be able to use ruby gems to install the rest you need. It is probably too much for right now but at some point you shold look at using rvm which helps you manage different versions of ruby on the same machine and to allow different installations of rails configurations for your different projects.
I think the tips I’ve used when installing rails on Windows is this:
- Do not use the native package manager to install ruby, rvm and gems.
- Install your own custom rvm, ruby and rails.
- The native package manager generally has very outdated ruby and rvm versions.
- I know this hurts unix purists, but it’s your time and using rvm/gem/rails like most other people do will save you a lot of time.
- Use the railsready script to automate installing custom rvm, ruby and rails versions.
- https://github.com/joshfng/railsready I think that’s it.
Btw, Rails 3 works best with Ruby 1.9.2. You may bump into bugs with Ruby 1.8.7 that can be hard to detect and debug. So type ‘ruby --version’ after installing ruby to make sure that you’re running a recent version.
Best,
Andy
Type. I meant the tips I’ve used when installing rails on Linux, not Windows.
rvm is a user sandbox. why would that hurt a purist?
Disclaimer: I really like the unix model of building products.
The objection I’ve heard is specifically for
-
gems that depends on native packages in the repository
-
ruby, rvm and ruby that is already in the native package manager
The idea expressed was that dependencies are already explicitly defined by the native package manager, and that this is the clean way of resolving these dependencies. Another objection to installing your own version was that this bypasses the standard way for distributions to deploy security and bug-fixes.
From experience I think this view falls short because most dependencies are resolved by just calling bundler, and for those that are not you can just update your README with the proper information.
best,
Andy
are part of the package repository
Colin Law wrote in post #995944:
A cautionary note, a new version of Ubuntu (11.04) has just been released, which has made major changes to the UI and still has some teething issues. I would advise an Ubuntu newcomer to install 10.10 for the moment (or even 10.04, the so called Long Term Support release).
Colin
Nothing wrong with 10.04 or 10.10. However, running Gnome 2.32.1 on 11.04 Works great. You do not need to run Unity if you don't want to.
To the OP: Switch to Ubuntu - It *will* change your life.
