10 ms·

Installing Rails on a Mac Shouldn't Be As Hard As It Is

84 points by bluedevil2k 14y ago

z_ 14y ago
Your first mistake is installing Rails. You're second mistake is attempting to do so on your development machine and not in a jail or vm.
- shane_mcd 14y ago
  Not sure why you'd recommend installing Rails in a VM? It's a framework, not an environment.
  - technomancy 14y ago
    You want development to match production as closely as possible, otherwise you're setting yourself up for nasty surprises down the line.
    - jasonshell 14y ago
      I found using a staging environment that is a clone of production to trump developing in a vm. All code goes through staging before production so there is no surprises
    - crazygringo 14y ago
      No, you want testing to match production as closely as possible. Much of the time, development can be done in all sorts of ways that needs little connection to the final production environment.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- batista 14y ago
  DHH, the creator of Rails, and the team at 37 Signals (the company behind it), install Rails on their development machines, (with Pow: http://pow.cx/ http://pow.cx/ ).
pjchristie 14y ago
This is very helpful
dansingerman 14y ago
I am not sure installing a full stack web framework, a version control system, and automated deployment to public hosting should be _that_ easy. Learning how to install it all is very informative as to what is going on. e.g. Deploying to Heroku is in fact very easy. Ok you have to mess around with ssh keys, but you don't want that to be automagic - you want to have some understanding of why what you are doing is secure, and why anyone else can't access your code.
- j45 14y ago
  If you want it to replace php (or anything), it has to be as accessible as php for the same developer. Until then, all the conversation about standards, best practices, and tutorials are far less accessible.
  - philwelch 14y ago
    The purpose of Rails isn't to replace PHP.
    - j45 14y ago
      It might not be, but our Rails heads sure do like talking about PHP a lot. If a technology is truly supposed to be accessible it needs to actually, be accessible instead of carrying an air of superiority, otherwise software continues to suffer.
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
      - philwelch 14y ago
        Rails isn't supposed to be accessible the way PHP is, i.e. built into every shared hosting account with unlimited flexibility as to what you can do with it. If that was the right way to go for web applications, there would have been no need for Rails in the first place, since PHP would have been sufficient.
adriand 14y ago
For Postgres, I really recommend postgresapp.com.
- masklinn 14y ago
  Only works if you downgrade from SL to Lion though.
  - telemachos 14y ago
    I've used Postgres.app recently on Lion. What problem did you have?
    - masklinn 14y ago
      Lion is the problem I have.
martingordon 14y ago
Yehuda Katz is working on a Mac app that sets Rails up on a Mac: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1397300529/railsapp http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1397300529/railsapp Also see this relevant (and relatively recent) update on the project: http://yehudakatz.com/2012/06/05/tokaido-status-update-implementation-details/ http://yehudakatz.com/2012/06/05/tokaido-status-update-imple...
molecule 14y ago
> Installing Rails on a Mac Shouldn't Be As Hard As It Is (cabforward.com) 1. Editorialized headline 2. It's easier than this article-- you don't have to install XCode: https://github.com/kennethreitz/osx-gcc-installer/ https://github.com/kennethreitz/osx-gcc-installer/ 3. There are some smart folks working hard to make it easier: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1397300529/railsapp http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1397300529/railsapp
- batista 14y ago
  >1. Editorialized headline And we should care because? The article is fine, the headline is correct (even if editorialized), and it can potentially save new users some time.
- brudgers 14y ago
  I believe the author's headline is justified within the article: "I'm coming from a Windows world, where installing Rails and all the tools is as easy as hitting up RailsInstaller.org, downloading an .exe file, and having my environment set up in a few minutes."
nicholassmith 14y ago
Maybe I'm coming at this from a different perspective as I've spent a number of years doing that whole "NINJAS BUILD FROM SRC.TAR" thing, but installing Rails under Mac has always been pretty straight forward. Get RVM > Get Ruby Version X > RubyGems > Rails > then fork off for databases if I want something fancy. You are installing something that by it's nature requires a bit more understanding that just clicking on a .exe. Do you want to replace the default Ruby setup, which could potentially be used by something? Do you want to install new database servers? Do you want to modify Apache? Do you want to fiddle with SSH key gens? Do you want to have to delve in and change items of your .bash_profile? Do you trust an automated installer to be able to do it reliably on every single machine? I'm not sure I'd have the confidence in something not going wrong and then sitting there with a half broken machine wondering what. At least this way at every step you can do the install > check & verify > confirm steps and make sure it's all business as normal.
- batista 14y ago
  >You are installing something that by it's nature requires a bit more understanding that just clicking on a .exe. I don't think it inherently require anything like that for _installing_. There is essential complexity (e.g the complexity of developing a RoR app), and accidental, inessential, complexity. Installation not being a one click / command process is inessential complexity. It's just that the people involved (and the people NOT involved) have failed to make it any better. For example, one can install Apache/PHP/MySQL on a Mac in a single package in 1 minute (via MAMP).
  - pyre 14y ago
    The php interpreter isn't used by system processes. I'm not sure how essential the stock Ruby interpreter, but I know that on Linux the system Perl & Python interpreters are used by system processes and upgrading them could potentially break things.
    - jasomill 14y ago
      OS X Server uses both PHP and Ruby. From my Lion Server: jtm@vertex ~ $ find /usr/share -iname *.php | wc -l 165 jtm@vertex ~ $ find /usr/share -iname *.rb | wc -l 5855 Even if you don't use OS X Server, Ruby.framework has been part of the API since Leopard [1], so applications can (and do) depend on it. [1] https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/OSX_Technology_Overview/SystemFrameworks/SystemFrameworks.html https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/MacOS...
saltcod 14y ago
Installing Rails and most everything else was simple for me. Getting mysql hooked up proved to be much more troublesome. Especially with MAMP installed already. I wish it would install in a contained package and not mess with anything else.
neilkelty 14y ago
Try this - https://github.com/kelsmj/macsetup https://github.com/kelsmj/macsetup
jroes 14y ago
How about https://github.com/thoughtbot/laptop https://github.com/thoughtbot/laptop
ridruejo 14y ago
Have you tried RubyStack (http://bitnami.org/stack/rubystack http://bitnami.org/stack/rubystack) In addition to Ruby runtime + Rails we include many of those components mentioined above such as SQLite, RVM, MySQL. Free and self-contained (so if you don't like it you can simply remove the installation directory) It works the same across Windows, Linux, OS X
pavel_lishin 14y ago
$ /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(/usr/bin/curl -fksSL http://bit.ly/HyK0NG) That looks terrifying.
- rmc 14y ago
  Too often you see advice like that. And this is supposed to be from technical users who know about security. And we wonder why mundanes click on spyware scams…
  - JonnieCache 14y ago
    How is it any different from downloading any other code and running it? Are you saying you audit every piece of unsigned code you run? I admit that putting bit.ly into the chain of trust is quite a bold step, but is it really that different to, say, the rubygems server? Or your wireless router? EDIT: also, LOL at "mundanes."
    - TylerE 14y ago
      Imagine Bit.ly gets backdoored, and that shortlink is repointed at a script that just contains rm -rf /
      - JonnieCache 14y ago
        Imagine your wifi box gets backdoored. Imagine your ISP's router gets backdoored. Imagine if the server you got your bash from gets backdoored. Imagine if the rails repo gets backdoored. Imagine if the plant where apple images the macbook HDDs gets backdoored. Imagine all the people, living for today... (But yeah, personally, I'd forgo the bit.ly part as its unnecessary.)
        pavel_lishin 14y ago
        I could also imagine that someone wired up my car to explode, but there's a reasonable level of paranoia. Link shorteners are fairly frequently used to hide the true destination of a link. Although, I wonder how hard it would be to set up some text with CSS that looks like one string, but is actually another. e.g. the user would see https://raw.github.com/mxcl/homebrew/master/Library/Contributions/install_homebrew.rb but when copied-and-pasted is revealed to actually be something like https://raw.github.com/mxel/homebrew/master/Library/Contributions/install_homebrew.rb
jff 14y ago
I think this is partly why so many of my Mac-using colleagues have a Linux VM for doing development; every programming-type task I tried to do on my Mac was an exercise in frustration. At least there's finally a set of command-line compilers you can get without having to download XCode (it's free, once you pay $99 to become a developer! I thought I already was a developer, which is why I want compilers...) Personally, I just installed Arch Linux on my Air. With the SSD, it boots in seconds, even on an encrypted root. I can use whatever window manager I want, and all the tools I need for work are there or easily accessible. No hoops, no tricks, no outsmarting the operating system.
- KC8ZKF 14y ago
  XCode is free without paying $99 for anything, and I don't remember a time when gcc and friends were not available for OS X.
- veyron 14y ago
  There's a free 200MB download of the command line build utilities. Xcode proper (4+ GB) is also free ...
  - jff 14y ago
    I was unable to find free versions of either of these, for Snow Leopard, when I looked a year ago. At that time, Lion was utterly unusable (not sure if it's any better), so I just gave up and got a Linux VM for that laptop.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
  - revscat 14y ago
    https://developer.apple.com/downloads/ https://developer.apple.com/downloads/ Requires sign in, but free otherwise.
getsat 14y ago
user@brand-new-mac $ which rails /usr/bin/rails What? OSX has shipped with (some version of) Rails since Leopard. You don't need to install a compiler or compile anything to use Rails on a Mac. It comes with sqlite3, too.
- lloeki 14y ago
  $ /usr/bin/rails Rails is not currently installed on this system. To get the latest version, simply type: $ sudo gem install rails You can then rerun your "rails" command. > The basic database program that Rails uses is SQLLite3, and you will need to install this to work with it. yet Tiger had sqlite3 already. What's more, Ruby is installed already. One can 'gem install rails' and have the latest version landing in /Library/Ruby/Gems
  - jasonkester 14y ago
    Added bonus: running sudo gem install rails spins for 20 minutes then dies with some cryptic error message. At least that was what happened when I tried to install rails on my brand new macbook air. To be fair though, open source software hates me. This has been pretty much the same experience I've had every single time I've tried to install anything with gem install, apt get or yum install. On every flavor of linux/unix on any box I've ever touched.
  - calinet6 14y ago
    While this is technically true, it's important to note that it's not usually desired. You should be running a fairly recent version to keep up with patches or match your server, you should be running RVM so you can keep a gemset and use bundler, and you should use homebrew to make installing other packages easier. Not that any of that is difficult, and you're right to a degree: you can get started learning using one command and go from there. It's really not that complicated.
programminggeek 14y ago
Doing ruby dev in a VM is pretty nice for some things, and terrible for others. In general, I think VM's are great if you have a team and need to get environments setup that work on any machine (windows/mac/linux). Where it falls flat is in some weird places like if you want to use Guard for automatic file change actions. Otherwise, it's pretty awesome. If I'm working on my own projects tho, running ruby local on OS X is the way to go. Much less overhead.
eli 14y ago
Unless you're planning to deploy to a production server running OS X, I don't see why you'd care about Rails running natively on your Mac. Why not develop against a VM running the same OS as your server?
- phaylon 14y ago
  What if you'd like to develop a gem not for any specific platform? What if you want to develop desktop apps, or make CLI apps to automate little things on your usual platform?
  - eli 14y ago
    Well, yeah, that's almost a truism: if your app needs to run on OS X, then it needs to run on OS X. I think very few Rails apps need to run on OS X, however.
    - phaylon 14y ago
      I guess it just depends on the target. For starting out serious development I'd certainly agree with all you say, although I personally prefer the local development and tests on staging method, since it means I know it runs on at least two systems, at least with the code where it's possible. It might be nicer for beginners though to be able to quickly dive in.
- crazygringo 14y ago
  Why on earth should you have to run a VM in order to run a programming language? This hasn't solved the problem of Ruby being difficult to install, it's just added ANOTHER problem of having to learn to install a VM manager and a whole new OS, plus using up far more system resources. Seems to me like that's just making things worse.
  - eli 14y ago
    Why on earth should you have to recreate your sever stack on a desktop OS? Seems like you're just begging to be bitten by some OS-specific bug or quirk. It solves the problem of Rails being hard to install on OS X... because it obviates the need to install Rails on OS X. And there's no new OS to learn -- the VM runs the same thing as your server. If you don't know how to use the OS that's running on your production server, that's a bigger problem. I've been developing this way for years. Additional benefits include: you can easily have multiple VMs with different configurations, you can snapshot/backup/restore a VM very easily, crashing a VM doesn't crash your computer, and it's relatively easy to share a fully configured VM with another developer (even if their primary OS is something totally different).
JohnBooty 14y ago
I'm coming from a Windows world, where installing Rails and all the tools is as easy as hitting up RailsInstaller.org, downloading an .exe file, and having my environment set up in a few minutes. Uh, what? http://railsinstaller.org/ http://railsinstaller.org/ has a Mac version too! It's right on their home page (if you're browsing from a Mac; it shows you the Windows version if you're browsing from Windows...) https://github.com/downloads/railsinstaller/railsinstaller-nix/RailsInstaller-1.0.1-osx-10.7.app.tgz https://github.com/downloads/railsinstaller/railsinstaller-n...
- stephenhuey 14y ago
  That's new. They just announced the Mac OS X version on June 1st: http://www.engineyard.com/blog/2012/railsinstaller-for-os-x/ http://www.engineyard.com/blog/2012/railsinstaller-for-os-x/
koryteg 14y ago
i found this article very encouraging. first i started developing on a windows 7 machine, before "railsinstaller.exe" was around. It was a pain to setup. soon after i was able to get my hands on a mac. still being pretty new to rails it was a whole new world of learning; git, ssh, .bash_profile, unix commands, figuring out gemsets on rvm, why one rails app would install rmagick, but another would error out, what the hell is GCC? working through these things was a huge help and eye opening experience for me. being new to OOP and web app development it seems like there is a never ending list of things to learn, and everyone out there with their computer science degree has the knowledge already that i am missing. so i guess it is encouraging to see a list of things that this "engineyard training provider" is struggling with, and i worked through it all and have a pretty good grasp on now.
tortilla 14y ago
I love cinderella: http://www.atmos.org/cinderella/ http://www.atmos.org/cinderella/
whalesalad 14y ago
Uhh. Rails on a mac is incredibly easy. And I'm a Django developer who's never really used it much. Got new MacBook Air. Install Xcode. Install homebrew. Install rbenv followed by ruby 1.9.x. gem install rails. Dunzo. SQLite comes with OS X. You can install Postgres pretty easily using homebrew. If you're gonna be a web developer and complain about something being more difficult than double-clicking an exe ... well then you might be doing it wrong. hah.
JonnieCache 14y ago
Far too high a proportion of the questions in #ruby are about installation. Often people come in having (naturally) tried to install it from their distro's package manager. First we have to explain to them why this is a bad idea and persuade them to remove it. Then, often they have tried to install it from source, passing some fucked up value to --prefix, and they have to be helped to clean that mess up. Then we tell them to use rvm, but someone pipes up about rbenv and friends and we have to explain the differences. Then it turns out that they didn't have openssl-dev or something installed so they have to recompile ruby again, or someone has to try and remember the magic spell to compile the openssl bit of ruby separately, which nobody ever can. THEN it turns out that all they want to do with ruby is run redmine, which has some other specific requirements that nobody in the channel knows or cares about. Basically, when yehuda katz finishes that project of his, freenode will be measurably happier, although the problems with OS packages will remain, I imagine forever. The real root of the problem is that a lot of the things which make the ruby ecosystem highly dysfunctional are the same things that make it so great. Primarily the fast pace.
- davidw 14y ago
  I use and love Ruby every day, but this package management business is ... irksome. First the Ruby guys crapped all over package management from Debian, who, despite their shortcomings, have been doing it a while and know a thing or two about it. That wasn't entirely unfounded, because there were some messy things there, and the intersection of two different package management systems is bound to be a bit confused. Now we have rvm's and gemsets and bundles and additionally people trying to foist off alternatives to some of these, and the whole thing is beginning to look like an unholy mess. Meanwhile, Debian/Ubuntu's package management continues to work pretty well at what it does.
  - mje__ 14y ago
    Until you have more than one app running on the same machine with different dependencies... like say on a development machine. This is the point when bundling shines, because it elevates you off of the os-level dependencies.
vbl 14y ago
As a non-developer who has tried several times to learn, I can say with 100% confidence that setting up a dev environment and workflow is fucking maddening. It's a major barrier to learning and I hate that it's as complex as it is. Should be turn-key.
- kaonashi 14y ago
  The thing is though, you need to be familiar the tools involved with installing the system in order to use the system. It might present a bit of a learning curve up front, but I think you'll be better off. Now try installing rails on a windows machine; that's the real pain in the ass.
DanielKehoe 14y ago
The author points to my article: http://railsapps.github.com/installing-rails.html http://railsapps.github.com/installing-rails.html I titled my article "Read This Before Installing Rails" because Rails is not just a Ruby gem, it is a complex and rapidly evolving ecosystem. Sure, if you want to see Rails running on your Mac you can use the installed system Ruby 1.8.7 and "gem install rails". But if you want to do development, you'll need to update (and keep updated) all the related gems and packages that are an essential part of the Rails habitat. Judging from the comments and help requests I see, that's not easy. Packages such as RailsInstaller, Cinderella or the BitNami RubyStack are great but they inevitably slip further and further behind the evolving state of the Rails ecosystem. I'm hoping the design of Yehuda Katz's Tokaido will avoid this issue. In the meantime, yes, it's difficult to install (and keep current) a useful and fully functioning Rails development environment on a Mac (or any other machine!). I say that from the experience of attempting to keep my "Installing Rails" article current. For example, would you like to develop using Ruby 1.9.3 (the current recommended version) and deploy to Heroku (which now supports Ruby 1.9.3)? You'll need to update to the unreleased 1.2.0.pre.1 bundler (which requires a "gem uninstall" not a "gem update"). That's true today. Maybe it'll change tomorrow. A rapidly evolving ecosystem is not a bad thing. Rails is a powerful, widely used, and well-supported development platform. The constant changes bring increased utility. If you can keep up and find the right advice. The author's article is sound and offers some of that good advice.
twinturbo 14y ago
#1. Install xcode for free #2. /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(/usr/bin/curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/mxcl/homebrew/master/Library/Contributions/install_homebrew.rb) https://raw.github.com/mxcl/homebrew/master/Library/Contribu... #3. curl -L https://get.rvm.io https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable --rails IT's not hard people!
mirceagoia 14y ago
It shouldn't be, but try on Linux...it's even worst than on Mac. That's why I made this 35 page tutorial: http://www.mirceagoia.com/2011/11/ruby-on-rails-installation-ubuntu-linux-mint/ http://www.mirceagoia.com/2011/11/ruby-on-rails-installation...
lexy0202 14y ago
Wow, this is somewhat ridiculous. I just clean installed Lion on my MBP. Installed Xcode form MAS, installed the Xcode command line tools (in the prefs), and ran curl -L https://get.rvm.io https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable --rails. Done.
andrewvc 14y ago
I'm pretty happy with vagrant images. Ultimately, putting your dev environment on a server image makes way more sense.
jenius 14y ago
I got frustrated with this as well and decided to make it easier. Here is my solution: http://up.jenius.me http://up.jenius.me
johnkpush 14y ago
I thought the Rails install process couldn't be easier, and I don't even like Rails... ducks
monfresh 14y ago
My tutorial (http://www.moncefbelyamani.com/how-to-install-xcode-homebrew-git-rvm-ruby-on-mac/ http://www.moncefbelyamani.com/how-to-install-xcode-homebrew...) is mentioned in the article, and at the time I wrote it (back in March), those were the steps necessary to install all of those tools. I published it to help others avoid the pain I went through, and to share what I've learned so far. Given that it has had over 15,000 views so far (mostly search traffic), I'd say it's doing its job. A few weeks ago, I used my own tutorial to set up a new MacBook Pro, and noticed that the latest version of the Xcode Command Line Tools and Homebrew seem to play well now. Originally, the separate CLT download from Apple and Kenneth Reitz's osx-gcc-installer resulted in errors when installing Homebrew, but I'm planning on trying them again soon and updating my tutorial with my findings. I'm also planning on evaluating the new RailsInstaller for Mac, but when starting out, I recommend learning the hard way to understand what each tool does and to pick up some basic command line skills.
paulmwatson1 14y ago
Is nobody worried that this developer wonders out loud why he can't re-use his GitHub key with Heroku? Basic knowledge seems missing.

84 points by bluedevil2k 14y ago

z_ 14y ago

Your first mistake is installing Rails. You're second mistake is attempting to do so on your development machine and not in a jail or vm.

shane_mcd 14y ago
Not sure why you'd recommend installing Rails in a VM? It's a framework, not an environment.
- technomancy 14y ago
  You want development to match production as closely as possible, otherwise you're setting yourself up for nasty surprises down the line.
  - jasonshell 14y ago
    I found using a staging environment that is a clone of production to trump developing in a vm. All code goes through staging before production so there is no surprises
  - crazygringo 14y ago
    No, you want testing to match production as closely as possible. Much of the time, development can be done in all sorts of ways that needs little connection to the final production environment.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
batista 14y ago
DHH, the creator of Rails, and the team at 37 Signals (the company behind it), install Rails on their development machines, (with Pow: http://pow.cx/ http://pow.cx/ ).

pjchristie 14y ago

This is very helpful

dansingerman 14y ago

I am not sure installing a full stack web framework, a version control system, and automated deployment to public hosting should be _that_ easy. Learning how to install it all is very informative as to what is going on. e.g. Deploying to Heroku is in fact very easy. Ok you have to mess around with ssh keys, but you don't want that to be automagic - you want to have some understanding of why what you are doing is secure, and why anyone else can't access your code.

j45 14y ago
If you want it to replace php (or anything), it has to be as accessible as php for the same developer. Until then, all the conversation about standards, best practices, and tutorials are far less accessible.
- philwelch 14y ago
  The purpose of Rails isn't to replace PHP.
  - j45 14y ago
    It might not be, but our Rails heads sure do like talking about PHP a lot. If a technology is truly supposed to be accessible it needs to actually, be accessible instead of carrying an air of superiority, otherwise software continues to suffer.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - philwelch 14y ago
      Rails isn't supposed to be accessible the way PHP is, i.e. built into every shared hosting account with unlimited flexibility as to what you can do with it. If that was the right way to go for web applications, there would have been no need for Rails in the first place, since PHP would have been sufficient.

adriand 14y ago

For Postgres, I really recommend postgresapp.com.

masklinn 14y ago
Only works if you downgrade from SL to Lion though.
- telemachos 14y ago
  I've used Postgres.app recently on Lion. What problem did you have?
  - masklinn 14y ago
    Lion is the problem I have.

martingordon 14y ago

Yehuda Katz is working on a Mac app that sets Rails up on a Mac: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1397300529/railsapp http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1397300529/railsapp Also see this relevant (and relatively recent) update on the project: http://yehudakatz.com/2012/06/05/tokaido-status-update-implementation-details/ http://yehudakatz.com/2012/06/05/tokaido-status-update-imple...

molecule 14y ago

> Installing Rails on a Mac Shouldn't Be As Hard As It Is (cabforward.com) 1. Editorialized headline 2. It's easier than this article-- you don't have to install XCode: https://github.com/kennethreitz/osx-gcc-installer/ https://github.com/kennethreitz/osx-gcc-installer/ 3. There are some smart folks working hard to make it easier: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1397300529/railsapp http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1397300529/railsapp

batista 14y ago
>1. Editorialized headline And we should care because? The article is fine, the headline is correct (even if editorialized), and it can potentially save new users some time.
brudgers 14y ago
I believe the author's headline is justified within the article: "I'm coming from a Windows world, where installing Rails and all the tools is as easy as hitting up RailsInstaller.org, downloading an .exe file, and having my environment set up in a few minutes."

nicholassmith 14y ago

Maybe I'm coming at this from a different perspective as I've spent a number of years doing that whole "NINJAS BUILD FROM SRC.TAR" thing, but installing Rails under Mac has always been pretty straight forward. Get RVM > Get Ruby Version X > RubyGems > Rails > then fork off for databases if I want something fancy. You are installing something that by it's nature requires a bit more understanding that just clicking on a .exe. Do you want to replace the default Ruby setup, which could potentially be used by something? Do you want to install new database servers? Do you want to modify Apache? Do you want to fiddle with SSH key gens? Do you want to have to delve in and change items of your .bash_profile? Do you trust an automated installer to be able to do it reliably on every single machine? I'm not sure I'd have the confidence in something not going wrong and then sitting there with a half broken machine wondering what. At least this way at every step you can do the install > check & verify > confirm steps and make sure it's all business as normal.

batista 14y ago
>You are installing something that by it's nature requires a bit more understanding that just clicking on a .exe. I don't think it inherently require anything like that for _installing_. There is essential complexity (e.g the complexity of developing a RoR app), and accidental, inessential, complexity. Installation not being a one click / command process is inessential complexity. It's just that the people involved (and the people NOT involved) have failed to make it any better. For example, one can install Apache/PHP/MySQL on a Mac in a single package in 1 minute (via MAMP).
- pyre 14y ago
  The php interpreter isn't used by system processes. I'm not sure how essential the stock Ruby interpreter, but I know that on Linux the system Perl & Python interpreters are used by system processes and upgrading them could potentially break things.
  - jasomill 14y ago
    OS X Server uses both PHP and Ruby. From my Lion Server: jtm@vertex ~ $ find /usr/share -iname *.php | wc -l 165 jtm@vertex ~ $ find /usr/share -iname *.rb | wc -l 5855 Even if you don't use OS X Server, Ruby.framework has been part of the API since Leopard [1], so applications can (and do) depend on it. [1] https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/OSX_Technology_Overview/SystemFrameworks/SystemFrameworks.html https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/MacOS...

saltcod 14y ago

Installing Rails and most everything else was simple for me. Getting mysql hooked up proved to be much more troublesome. Especially with MAMP installed already. I wish it would install in a contained package and not mess with anything else.

neilkelty 14y ago

Try this - https://github.com/kelsmj/macsetup https://github.com/kelsmj/macsetup

jroes 14y ago

How about https://github.com/thoughtbot/laptop https://github.com/thoughtbot/laptop

ridruejo 14y ago

Have you tried RubyStack (http://bitnami.org/stack/rubystack http://bitnami.org/stack/rubystack) In addition to Ruby runtime + Rails we include many of those components mentioined above such as SQLite, RVM, MySQL. Free and self-contained (so if you don't like it you can simply remove the installation directory) It works the same across Windows, Linux, OS X

pavel_lishin 14y ago

$ /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(/usr/bin/curl -fksSL http://bit.ly/HyK0NG) That looks terrifying.

rmc 14y ago
Too often you see advice like that. And this is supposed to be from technical users who know about security. And we wonder why mundanes click on spyware scams…
- JonnieCache 14y ago
  How is it any different from downloading any other code and running it? Are you saying you audit every piece of unsigned code you run? I admit that putting bit.ly into the chain of trust is quite a bold step, but is it really that different to, say, the rubygems server? Or your wireless router? EDIT: also, LOL at "mundanes."
  - TylerE 14y ago
    Imagine Bit.ly gets backdoored, and that shortlink is repointed at a script that just contains rm -rf /
    - JonnieCache 14y ago
      Imagine your wifi box gets backdoored. Imagine your ISP's router gets backdoored. Imagine if the server you got your bash from gets backdoored. Imagine if the rails repo gets backdoored. Imagine if the plant where apple images the macbook HDDs gets backdoored. Imagine all the people, living for today... (But yeah, personally, I'd forgo the bit.ly part as its unnecessary.)
      - pavel_lishin 14y ago
        I could also imagine that someone wired up my car to explode, but there's a reasonable level of paranoia. Link shorteners are fairly frequently used to hide the true destination of a link. Although, I wonder how hard it would be to set up some text with CSS that looks like one string, but is actually another. e.g. the user would see https://raw.github.com/mxcl/homebrew/master/Library/Contributions/install_homebrew.rb but when copied-and-pasted is revealed to actually be something like https://raw.github.com/mxel/homebrew/master/Library/Contributions/install_homebrew.rb

jff 14y ago

I think this is partly why so many of my Mac-using colleagues have a Linux VM for doing development; every programming-type task I tried to do on my Mac was an exercise in frustration. At least there's finally a set of command-line compilers you can get without having to download XCode (it's free, once you pay $99 to become a developer! I thought I already was a developer, which is why I want compilers...) Personally, I just installed Arch Linux on my Air. With the SSD, it boots in seconds, even on an encrypted root. I can use whatever window manager I want, and all the tools I need for work are there or easily accessible. No hoops, no tricks, no outsmarting the operating system.

KC8ZKF 14y ago
XCode is free without paying $99 for anything, and I don't remember a time when gcc and friends were not available for OS X.
veyron 14y ago
There's a free 200MB download of the command line build utilities. Xcode proper (4+ GB) is also free ...
- jff 14y ago
  I was unable to find free versions of either of these, for Snow Leopard, when I looked a year ago. At that time, Lion was utterly unusable (not sure if it's any better), so I just gave up and got a Linux VM for that laptop.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- revscat 14y ago
  https://developer.apple.com/downloads/ https://developer.apple.com/downloads/ Requires sign in, but free otherwise.

getsat 14y ago

user@brand-new-mac $ which rails /usr/bin/rails What? OSX has shipped with (some version of) Rails since Leopard. You don't need to install a compiler or compile anything to use Rails on a Mac. It comes with sqlite3, too.

lloeki 14y ago
$ /usr/bin/rails Rails is not currently installed on this system. To get the latest version, simply type: $ sudo gem install rails You can then rerun your "rails" command. > The basic database program that Rails uses is SQLLite3, and you will need to install this to work with it. yet Tiger had sqlite3 already. What's more, Ruby is installed already. One can 'gem install rails' and have the latest version landing in /Library/Ruby/Gems
- jasonkester 14y ago
  Added bonus: running sudo gem install rails spins for 20 minutes then dies with some cryptic error message. At least that was what happened when I tried to install rails on my brand new macbook air. To be fair though, open source software hates me. This has been pretty much the same experience I've had every single time I've tried to install anything with gem install, apt get or yum install. On every flavor of linux/unix on any box I've ever touched.
- calinet6 14y ago
  While this is technically true, it's important to note that it's not usually desired. You should be running a fairly recent version to keep up with patches or match your server, you should be running RVM so you can keep a gemset and use bundler, and you should use homebrew to make installing other packages easier. Not that any of that is difficult, and you're right to a degree: you can get started learning using one command and go from there. It's really not that complicated.

programminggeek 14y ago

Doing ruby dev in a VM is pretty nice for some things, and terrible for others. In general, I think VM's are great if you have a team and need to get environments setup that work on any machine (windows/mac/linux). Where it falls flat is in some weird places like if you want to use Guard for automatic file change actions. Otherwise, it's pretty awesome. If I'm working on my own projects tho, running ruby local on OS X is the way to go. Much less overhead.

eli 14y ago

Unless you're planning to deploy to a production server running OS X, I don't see why you'd care about Rails running natively on your Mac. Why not develop against a VM running the same OS as your server?

phaylon 14y ago
What if you'd like to develop a gem not for any specific platform? What if you want to develop desktop apps, or make CLI apps to automate little things on your usual platform?
- eli 14y ago
  Well, yeah, that's almost a truism: if your app needs to run on OS X, then it needs to run on OS X. I think very few Rails apps need to run on OS X, however.
  - phaylon 14y ago
    I guess it just depends on the target. For starting out serious development I'd certainly agree with all you say, although I personally prefer the local development and tests on staging method, since it means I know it runs on at least two systems, at least with the code where it's possible. It might be nicer for beginners though to be able to quickly dive in.
crazygringo 14y ago
Why on earth should you have to run a VM in order to run a programming language? This hasn't solved the problem of Ruby being difficult to install, it's just added ANOTHER problem of having to learn to install a VM manager and a whole new OS, plus using up far more system resources. Seems to me like that's just making things worse.
- eli 14y ago
  Why on earth should you have to recreate your sever stack on a desktop OS? Seems like you're just begging to be bitten by some OS-specific bug or quirk. It solves the problem of Rails being hard to install on OS X... because it obviates the need to install Rails on OS X. And there's no new OS to learn -- the VM runs the same thing as your server. If you don't know how to use the OS that's running on your production server, that's a bigger problem. I've been developing this way for years. Additional benefits include: you can easily have multiple VMs with different configurations, you can snapshot/backup/restore a VM very easily, crashing a VM doesn't crash your computer, and it's relatively easy to share a fully configured VM with another developer (even if their primary OS is something totally different).

JohnBooty 14y ago

I'm coming from a Windows world, where installing Rails and all the tools is as easy as hitting up RailsInstaller.org, downloading an .exe file, and having my environment set up in a few minutes. Uh, what? http://railsinstaller.org/ http://railsinstaller.org/ has a Mac version too! It's right on their home page (if you're browsing from a Mac; it shows you the Windows version if you're browsing from Windows...) https://github.com/downloads/railsinstaller/railsinstaller-nix/RailsInstaller-1.0.1-osx-10.7.app.tgz https://github.com/downloads/railsinstaller/railsinstaller-n...

stephenhuey 14y ago
That's new. They just announced the Mac OS X version on June 1st: http://www.engineyard.com/blog/2012/railsinstaller-for-os-x/ http://www.engineyard.com/blog/2012/railsinstaller-for-os-x/

koryteg 14y ago

i found this article very encouraging. first i started developing on a windows 7 machine, before "railsinstaller.exe" was around. It was a pain to setup. soon after i was able to get my hands on a mac. still being pretty new to rails it was a whole new world of learning; git, ssh, .bash_profile, unix commands, figuring out gemsets on rvm, why one rails app would install rmagick, but another would error out, what the hell is GCC? working through these things was a huge help and eye opening experience for me. being new to OOP and web app development it seems like there is a never ending list of things to learn, and everyone out there with their computer science degree has the knowledge already that i am missing. so i guess it is encouraging to see a list of things that this "engineyard training provider" is struggling with, and i worked through it all and have a pretty good grasp on now.

tortilla 14y ago

I love cinderella: http://www.atmos.org/cinderella/ http://www.atmos.org/cinderella/

whalesalad 14y ago

Uhh. Rails on a mac is incredibly easy. And I'm a Django developer who's never really used it much. Got new MacBook Air. Install Xcode. Install homebrew. Install rbenv followed by ruby 1.9.x. gem install rails. Dunzo. SQLite comes with OS X. You can install Postgres pretty easily using homebrew. If you're gonna be a web developer and complain about something being more difficult than double-clicking an exe ... well then you might be doing it wrong. hah.

JonnieCache 14y ago

Far too high a proportion of the questions in #ruby are about installation. Often people come in having (naturally) tried to install it from their distro's package manager. First we have to explain to them why this is a bad idea and persuade them to remove it. Then, often they have tried to install it from source, passing some fucked up value to --prefix, and they have to be helped to clean that mess up. Then we tell them to use rvm, but someone pipes up about rbenv and friends and we have to explain the differences. Then it turns out that they didn't have openssl-dev or something installed so they have to recompile ruby again, or someone has to try and remember the magic spell to compile the openssl bit of ruby separately, which nobody ever can. THEN it turns out that all they want to do with ruby is run redmine, which has some other specific requirements that nobody in the channel knows or cares about. Basically, when yehuda katz finishes that project of his, freenode will be measurably happier, although the problems with OS packages will remain, I imagine forever. The real root of the problem is that a lot of the things which make the ruby ecosystem highly dysfunctional are the same things that make it so great. Primarily the fast pace.

davidw 14y ago
I use and love Ruby every day, but this package management business is ... irksome. First the Ruby guys crapped all over package management from Debian, who, despite their shortcomings, have been doing it a while and know a thing or two about it. That wasn't entirely unfounded, because there were some messy things there, and the intersection of two different package management systems is bound to be a bit confused. Now we have rvm's and gemsets and bundles and additionally people trying to foist off alternatives to some of these, and the whole thing is beginning to look like an unholy mess. Meanwhile, Debian/Ubuntu's package management continues to work pretty well at what it does.
- mje__ 14y ago
  Until you have more than one app running on the same machine with different dependencies... like say on a development machine. This is the point when bundling shines, because it elevates you off of the os-level dependencies.

vbl 14y ago

As a non-developer who has tried several times to learn, I can say with 100% confidence that setting up a dev environment and workflow is fucking maddening. It's a major barrier to learning and I hate that it's as complex as it is. Should be turn-key.

kaonashi 14y ago
The thing is though, you need to be familiar the tools involved with installing the system in order to use the system. It might present a bit of a learning curve up front, but I think you'll be better off. Now try installing rails on a windows machine; that's the real pain in the ass.

DanielKehoe 14y ago

The author points to my article: http://railsapps.github.com/installing-rails.html http://railsapps.github.com/installing-rails.html I titled my article "Read This Before Installing Rails" because Rails is not just a Ruby gem, it is a complex and rapidly evolving ecosystem. Sure, if you want to see Rails running on your Mac you can use the installed system Ruby 1.8.7 and "gem install rails". But if you want to do development, you'll need to update (and keep updated) all the related gems and packages that are an essential part of the Rails habitat. Judging from the comments and help requests I see, that's not easy. Packages such as RailsInstaller, Cinderella or the BitNami RubyStack are great but they inevitably slip further and further behind the evolving state of the Rails ecosystem. I'm hoping the design of Yehuda Katz's Tokaido will avoid this issue. In the meantime, yes, it's difficult to install (and keep current) a useful and fully functioning Rails development environment on a Mac (or any other machine!). I say that from the experience of attempting to keep my "Installing Rails" article current. For example, would you like to develop using Ruby 1.9.3 (the current recommended version) and deploy to Heroku (which now supports Ruby 1.9.3)? You'll need to update to the unreleased 1.2.0.pre.1 bundler (which requires a "gem uninstall" not a "gem update"). That's true today. Maybe it'll change tomorrow. A rapidly evolving ecosystem is not a bad thing. Rails is a powerful, widely used, and well-supported development platform. The constant changes bring increased utility. If you can keep up and find the right advice. The author's article is sound and offers some of that good advice.

twinturbo 14y ago

#1. Install xcode for free #2. /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(/usr/bin/curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/mxcl/homebrew/master/Library/Contributions/install_homebrew.rb) https://raw.github.com/mxcl/homebrew/master/Library/Contribu... #3. curl -L https://get.rvm.io https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable --rails IT's not hard people!

mirceagoia 14y ago

It shouldn't be, but try on Linux...it's even worst than on Mac. That's why I made this 35 page tutorial: http://www.mirceagoia.com/2011/11/ruby-on-rails-installation-ubuntu-linux-mint/ http://www.mirceagoia.com/2011/11/ruby-on-rails-installation...

lexy0202 14y ago

Wow, this is somewhat ridiculous. I just clean installed Lion on my MBP. Installed Xcode form MAS, installed the Xcode command line tools (in the prefs), and ran curl -L https://get.rvm.io https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable --rails. Done.

andrewvc 14y ago

I'm pretty happy with vagrant images. Ultimately, putting your dev environment on a server image makes way more sense.

jenius 14y ago

I got frustrated with this as well and decided to make it easier. Here is my solution: http://up.jenius.me http://up.jenius.me

johnkpush 14y ago

I thought the Rails install process couldn't be easier, and I don't even like Rails... ducks

monfresh 14y ago

My tutorial (http://www.moncefbelyamani.com/how-to-install-xcode-homebrew-git-rvm-ruby-on-mac/ http://www.moncefbelyamani.com/how-to-install-xcode-homebrew...) is mentioned in the article, and at the time I wrote it (back in March), those were the steps necessary to install all of those tools. I published it to help others avoid the pain I went through, and to share what I've learned so far. Given that it has had over 15,000 views so far (mostly search traffic), I'd say it's doing its job. A few weeks ago, I used my own tutorial to set up a new MacBook Pro, and noticed that the latest version of the Xcode Command Line Tools and Homebrew seem to play well now. Originally, the separate CLT download from Apple and Kenneth Reitz's osx-gcc-installer resulted in errors when installing Homebrew, but I'm planning on trying them again soon and updating my tutorial with my findings. I'm also planning on evaluating the new RailsInstaller for Mac, but when starting out, I recommend learning the hard way to understand what each tool does and to pick up some basic command line skills.

paulmwatson1 14y ago

Is nobody worried that this developer wonders out loud why he can't re-use his GitHub key with Heroku? Basic knowledge seems missing.