How to Install Ruby on Rails on a Windows Platform PC.

How to Install Ruby on Rails on a Windows Platform PC.
Page content

Introduction

Ruby on Rails, or ROR in short, is a web application framework which uses the Ruby programming language and the Rails application. ROR is very popular nowadays particularly due to its ease of use and short learning curve; it is particularly suited for and aimed at beginning programmers, sharing some characteristics common to the Smalltalk programming languages of the 70’s.

ROR is a general purpose object oriented programming language, and is used to build dynamic web applications.

Installing Ruby on Rails

Here we will provide a simple tutorial on how to install ROR on a Windows PC, for a developer environment. First you will need to download a copy of MySQL and the Window’s Installer for Ruby. They can be found here:

MySQL - https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.0.html#win32

Ruby Windows Installer - https://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=167

Install the MySQL package first, then move onto the Ruby gem installer. If you have internet access the next process is easy, since it is automated. You can type the following command in order to install the Rails gem on your machine:

install rails –include-dependencies

Should you run into problems during the installation of Rails, or should you lack a connection to the internet on the machine you are using, you can download the Rails packages separately in order to install each gem on your machine. Go to the following page and download the latest version of the Rails file, ending with a *.gem extension:

https://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=307

Now you can run the following command:

gem install gem-name-x.x.x –local

Replace the three ‘x’s with the current gem version you’ve downloaded. For example, as it stands, the latest version of the Rails gem is currently 2.1.1. After you hit enter, it should begin installing the gem and related dependency files. If you don’t have the related dependency files, you will likely encounter an error which will say ‘rail- 2.1.1 needs name-of-gem x.x.x. (version). This is normal and you can easily correct it by placing the needed dependency gem in the directory where you chose to install Rails.

You can find an extensive list of dependencies for the current version of rails at this page:

https://angrys0ul.com/blog/2007/04/25/how-to-install-ruby-on-rails-on-a-windows-pc/

(middle of page)

You are now ready to use Rails and develop your needed application. The above page also has a good tutorial should you wish to start straight away.