
Rails Installer - Get up and running on Windows - bphogan
http://railsinstaller.org/
======
petercooper
From [http://www.rubyinside.com/rails-installer-ruby-and-rails-
on-...](http://www.rubyinside.com/rails-installer-ruby-and-rails-on-windows-
in-a-single-install-4201.html) (which I worked on with Wayne), I just wanted
to repeat a key point:

 _I've been speaking to Wayne and in the long term he will extend the
RailsInstaller site with more information on where to go next and links to
tutorials, etc, but for now he wants RailsInstaller.org to be the #1 "go to"
site for budding Windows-based Rails developers. To help with this, he's keen
for people to link to<http://railsinstaller.org/> with the text Rails Windows
Installer - making it more likely to come up if people Google for "rails
windows" and similar._

Being on sites like HN will probably do most of the work but Wayne & RVM have
been significant credits to the Ruby world in the last year so if you have the
opportunity to link it up, please do! I'm going to get a link on Ruby Inside
ASAP..

------
notahacker
The biggest hurdle with Rails on Windows is that when things go wrong (and
often in subtly different ways with different solutions to when things go
wrong on OSX and Unix), the quality of help just isn't the same. Overcoming
that is a harder barrier than the initial installation, which this certainly
seems to significantly improve.

The most useful Windows installer I found for RoR (and I'm far from a Windows
detractor) was this one: <http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/windows-
installer>

~~~
drnicwilliams
Another "side-by-side" route is via virtualization. I like
<http://vagrantup.com/> a lot for this. It allows you to share folders between
the host + the guest OS. I'm interested in this route. Engine Yard is
sponsoring Mitchell & his virtualization work to help it get more traction as
part of a standard development toolset.

Either way, these are more convoluted "getting started" or "test drive"
solutions. A 50Mb one-click installer that "just works" will hopefully help
new Rails developers fall in love with Rails first and foremostly.

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notsosmart
I'm just learning ROR from an online tutorial (<http://railstutorial.org/>),
and I wish I had this last week. For newbies like myself, I think installing
the framework is sometimes such a big hurdle, it pushes one to give up early.
Which is unfortunate, because I read the real challenges happen a few weeks
in.

I had a weird issue where I had to reinstall xcode from the OS X DVD. Took a
bit of Googling to figure that one out.

~~~
getsat
If you're on a mac, you already have rails and ruby 1.8.6 (osx 10.5) or 1.8.7
(osx 10.6).

Just __sudo gem update __to get the latest version and you're good to go.

~~~
drnicwilliams
ruby 1.8.7 is required for Rails 3; so Leopard/10.5 users need to install ruby
1.8.7 manually to get started as if they didn't have ruby installed at all, I
think.

~~~
rohitarondekar
Actually ruby 1.8.7 is required to install ruby 1.9.2. Rails doesn't need
1.8.7 and works fine with just ruby 1.9.2 installed.

    
    
      ruby - Ruby itself is prerequisite in order to build Ruby 1.9. It can be 1.8.
    

source: [http://redmine.ruby-
lang.org/wiki/ruby/DeveloperHowto#label-...](http://redmine.ruby-
lang.org/wiki/ruby/DeveloperHowto#label-3)

~~~
getsat
If you install via RVM, you don't need a system ruby or anything else
installed for bootstrapping.

<http://rvm.beginrescueend.com/rvm/install/>

<http://rvm.beginrescueend.com/deployment/system-wide/>

------
cosgroveb
If you want to get up and running on Ubuntu I've found that this is a great
way: <http://ryanbigg.com/2010/12/ubuntu-ruby-rvm-rails-and-you>

~~~
petercooper
I made a screencast of that for anyone who prefers that method:
[http://www.rubyinside.com/how-to-install-ruby-1-9-2-and-
rail...](http://www.rubyinside.com/how-to-install-ruby-1-9-2-and-rails-3-0-on-
ubuntu-10-10-4148.html)

------
milesf
The coderpath podcast (<http://coderpath.com>) will be interviewing Wayne and
Dr. Nic later today (January 18th/2011 @ 4pm PST). If you would like the host
of coderpath to ask them a question about the Rails Installer, add your
questions here: <http://titanpad.com/r8CWyBBA4T>

------
jrnkntl
I am sure there is a good reason for choosing Ruby 1.8.7-p* instead of 1.9.*,
but I'd like to know that reason :)

~~~
trustfundbaby
Ruby 1.9.1 segfaults with rails 3 and 1.9.2 is in a state of flux? maybe?

~~~
rue
1.9.2 is stable. It, apparently, doesn't work perfectly on Windows though.

~~~
steveklabnik
All of my Hackety problems on Windows? Ruby 1.9.1. Works great on Linux and
Mac. Windows... not so much.

Working on the 1.9.2 port, but it's just not that simple...

------
tomhallett
As far as easing pains for Windows development in a corporate environment, I
don't see this as a silver bullet because of the poor support for mswin32
gems. BUT for Rails being taught in the classroom and other developers testing
out Rails on the weekend - this could be a game changer.

------
drnicwilliams
My feature wish: I hope for ANSI colors. Oooh, I want pretty colors enabled by
default.

~~~
bryanbibat
the closest we can get to ANSI color support is ANSICON
<http://adoxa.110mb.com/ansicon/index.html>

Here's what it looks like with Rspec: <http://www.bryanbibat.net/images/rspec-
haml.png>

~~~
drnicwilliams
Yes, colors!!! I added a feature request here -
<https://www.pivotaltracker.com/story/show/8786925>

~~~
clyfe
In cygwin, the mintty terminal has great looks (ansi colors and pretty smooth
font).

<http://code.google.com/p/mintty/>

------
empire29
Very cool - I have yet to try it out, but if its as easy as the video
suggests, this could be a boon for ruby/rails. I've made several attempts at
introducing .NET developer friends to Ruby/Rails, but they've given up, due to
frustration preparing the environment on their Windows boxes -- Hopefully this
will help change that experience.

------
clark-kent
So this is a new version of InstantRails
(<http://instantrails.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl>), good to see the project
was continued.

It was how i started with Rails and Ruby on Windows. After I got addicted I
switched to Ubuntu.

------
dickeytk
I thought rails was a pain to set up until I got a mac. That's not an
advertisement for osx though, it's just what rails is catered for. I would
love to see better support on other platforms. This includes linux, it's
easier than osx, but there are still issues.

------
migmartri
What are the differences between RailsInstaller and RubyStack ?

<http://bitnami.org/stack/rubystack>

~~~
drnicwilliams
RubyStack is great - it installs lots of things you need for running Rails in
production on Windows, I think. Like Apache and MySQL server, etc. The
20-panel wizard is sort of off-putting, if you really want to be fussy. I
don't think RubyStack includes Git when I last looked.

The focus for RailsInstaller is a welcome kit for new developers. Can we give
them everything they need for the first 30 days until they fall in love with
Rails? After that, they'll learn to create tickets on projects, learn about
different Rubies, learn about different ways to do things.

Can we keep them excited and nurture them into the Rails/Ruby communities?
Hopefully, yes, if its trivially easy to get started.

~~~
ridruejo
Yes, RubyStack includes Git as well

~~~
drnicwilliams
Ah ok, thanks. I didn't see it mentioned on
<http://bitnami.org/stack/rubystack> and I didn't remember seeing it when I
ran the installer last year.

~~~
ridruejo
It's in the readme ;)

<http://bitnami.org/files/stacks/rubystack/2.1-0/README.txt>

