Asp Forum - Re: Ruby and Debian

mathew

12/21/2005 10:43:00 PM

Chris Martin wrote:
>On 12/16/05, Hal Fulton <hal9000@hypermetrics.com> wrote:
>>What's the magic to get this going on Debian?
>
> Assuming you're using Ruby 1.8 you need to
>
> apt-get install libruby1.8

But ruby already lists libruby1.8 as a dependency, so that shouldn't be
the problem. It should already have been installed when ruby was installed.

> For Rails, I ALWAYS use rubygems to install it. I've never had luck
> with the debian packages.

Yes, well, let's not reopen the RubyGems vs APT discussion again...
That's one area where the Debian folk deserve criticism, but they don't
seem to have any interest in cooperating to fix the problem.

So yeah, the best thing is to install RubyGems from source and use it
for all Ruby libraries. Or as you say:

> As silly as this sounds, I typically install gems via gem (rubygems)
> and anything that starts with lib via apt. ;)

mathew
--
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/...
My parents went to the lost kingdom of Hyrule
and all I got was this lousy triforce.

5 Answers

Al Gordon

12/22/2005 10:04:00 PM

On 12/21/05, mathew <meta@pobox.com> wrote:
> Chris Martin wrote:
> >On 12/16/05, Hal Fulton <hal9000@hypermetrics.com> wrote:
> >>What's the magic to get this going on Debian?
> >
> > Assuming you're using Ruby 1.8 you need to
> >
> > apt-get install libruby1.8
>
> But ruby already lists libruby1.8 as a dependency, so that shouldn't be
> the problem. It should already have been installed when ruby was installed.
>
> > For Rails, I ALWAYS use rubygems to install it. I've never had luck
> > with the debian packages.
>
> Yes, well, let's not reopen the RubyGems vs APT discussion again...
> That's one area where the Debian folk deserve criticism, but they don't
> seem to have any interest in cooperating to fix the problem.
>
> So yeah, the best thing is to install RubyGems from source and use it
> for all Ruby libraries. Or as you say:
>
> > As silly as this sounds, I typically install gems via gem (rubygems)
> > and anything that starts with lib via apt. ;)
>
>
> mathew
> --
> <URL:http://www.pobox.com/...
> My parents went to the lost kingdom of Hyrule
> and all I got was this lousy triforce.

Is there an easy way for Debian users to create .debs for stuff
otherwise installed via gems or with setup.rb? I regularly create
debs for "./configure; make; make install" by using checkinstall, but
am unaware of the ruby equivalent, if any. I'd heard that it's out
there, but haven't seen it in my googling.

Thanks,

--

-- AL --

Hans Fugal

12/23/2005 1:30:00 PM

It's called equivs, and I've never used it but I know you can do it.
Try that for a google keyword.

Esteban Manchado Velázquez

12/23/2005 4:49:00 PM

On Fri, Dec 23, 2005 at 10:32:50PM +0900, Hans Fugal wrote:
> It's called equivs, and I've never used it but I know you can do it.
> Try that for a google keyword.

equivs is for creating (mostly) empty .deb packages, for testing purposes
or to work-around dependency problems.

There isn't (yet) a way to create a .deb package from a Ruby Gem or a
setup.rb-ridden Ruby tarball, but we're working on it (specially the second).

Regards,

--
Esteban Manchado Velázquez <zoso@foton.es> - http://ww...
EuropeSwPatentFree - http://EuropeSwPatentFree.his...

Shot - Piotr Szotkowski

12/23/2005 10:40:00 PM

Hello.

mathew:

> Yes, well, let's not reopen the RubyGems vs APT discussion again...
> That's one area where the Debian folk deserve criticism, but they
> don't seem to have any interest in cooperating to fix the problem.

Don't you think that following 'let's not reopen' with 'Debian folk
deserve criticism' and 'don't seem to have any interest in cooperating'
seems a bit contradictory?

Al Gordon:

> Is there an easy way for Debian users to create .debs for stuff
> otherwise installed via gems or with setup.rb? I regularly create
> .debs for "./configure; make; make install" by using checkinstall,
> but am unaware of the ruby equivalent, if any.

Don't `checkinstall gem install ...`
and `checkinstall ruby setup.rb` work?

(Not tried these, just wondering.)

Cheers,
-- Shot (who believes that Debian folks are right in trying to follow FHS)
--
You're basically killing each other to see who's got the better
imaginary friend. -- Yasir Arafat on religious wars
====================== http://shot.pl/h... === http://shot... ===

Gregory Seidman

12/24/2005 12:16:00 AM

On Sat, Dec 24, 2005 at 07:39:46AM +0900, Shot - Piotr Szotkowski wrote:
} Hello.
}
} mathew:
}
} > Yes, well, let's not reopen the RubyGems vs APT discussion again...
} > That's one area where the Debian folk deserve criticism, but they
} > don't seem to have any interest in cooperating to fix the problem.
}
} Don't you think that following 'let's not reopen' with 'Debian folk
} deserve criticism' and 'don't seem to have any interest in cooperating'
} seems a bit contradictory?
}
} Al Gordon:
}
} > Is there an easy way for Debian users to create .debs for stuff
} > otherwise installed via gems or with setup.rb? I regularly create
} > .debs for "./configure; make; make install" by using checkinstall,
} > but am unaware of the ruby equivalent, if any.
}
} Don't `checkinstall gem install ...`
} and `checkinstall ruby setup.rb` work?
}
} (Not tried these, just wondering.)

I haven't tried either of these, but I've been happy with a /usr/local
install of gem on Debian. It took some work to figure out how to get it to
work right, but I documented it at
http://rubyforge.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1198&group_id=126&am...
so other people can deal with it themselves. To deal with the GEM_HOME
environment variable issue I added the following line to /etc/csh.cshrc:

setenv GEM_HOME "/usr/local/lib/site_ruby/gems"

...and the following line to /etc/profile:

export GEM_HOME="/usr/local/lib/site_ruby/gems"

I also symlinked /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/gems/bin to /usr/local/bin for
convenience.

While it would be nice if Debian magically played nice with RubyGems, I'm
more annoyed that it took a moderately complicated workaround to get gem to
install in /usr/local properly, like any well-behaved piece of OSS would.

} Cheers,
} -- Shot (who believes that Debian folks are right in trying to follow FHS)
--Greg

comp.lang.ruby