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LinRails — Ruby On Rails For Linux
foobarf00 writes "LinRails is a binary package that includes Ruby-1.8.6, Rubygems-0.9.4, Rails 1.2.3, Mongrel 1.0.1, MySQL-5.0.41, ncurses-5.6, OpenSSL-0.9.8e, and zlib-1.2.3. Its goal is to make it easy to get a Ruby on Rails development environment running in no time. This initial 0.1 release doesn't have a Web server in the package; opinions are solicited as to which to include."
...up2date?
:-P
monk.e.boy
Open source, flash charts
Makes this so easy it's hardly worth the packaging bother. Although I guess people still saddled with the atrocious Yum will like it.
> It includes Mongrel 1.01 [...]
>This initial 0.1 release doesn't have a Web server
Mongrel is a very good web server, especially for a development environment. (And the ruby package includes webbrick on top of that). Current 'best practice' deployments of RoR applications usually use a pack of Mongrels behind a load balancer (such as mod_proxy or Pound), and/or Apache or Nginx to serve static pages. If you want to completely mirror your production environment in your development/testing environment than including those would the logical choice.
This sig is just as redundant as the rest of this posting
And not the vastly superior PostgreSQL? I really like FKs in my relational data. And I know that MySQL does support them, but not with myISAM tables.
This is really not meant to be a flame, but pgsql is really better than mysql, so why not include the better one? Or am I wrong?
I just don't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die.
This is great news for me. I recently built an Ubuntu system on which to do media production (music, video, like that). It's not my primary system yet, but I've been so disgusted with Windows Vista and Mac OS that I decided it was time to make (another) try at doing my work on a Linux system.
After three months, the results have far exceeded my expectation. I'm very impressed with the maturity of music production apps for Linux and the performance has been as strong as I expected. I'm still a Linux noob, but the experience has been positively inspirational. In fact, it's been a lot like my first experiences with media production on my first Mac, where just about every day brought another new way to look at the work.
I'm not a programmer, but I'm learning Ruby and this new release gives me one more reason to sit down at the Linux box instead of my others.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Color me stupid here, but isn't Apache the de facto standard that most everyone uses?
Some may argue that better alternatives exist (of which I'm not really aware) but since Apache is so popular and common place, wouldn't it seem the logical piece of this meta-package?
People who want specific packages for specific reasons are going to set up their own environment. For a pre-setup environment, shouldn't you shoot for the common setup?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
This thing is completely pointless and unnecessary under modern Linux package management systems. One could just create a metapackage with the proper dependencies.
Even without such a metapackage, one can install this software with a single apt-get command line. Windows-based development methodology is bad enough, let's not infect linux/unix development with it.
we discovered a new way to think.
It seems to me that this would have made a good "Ask Slashdot" article.
All it would have taken was editing a word or two of the submitted story to make the implicit question more direct and, voila, there's the article...
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
How anybody could conclude otherwise is beyond me.
I've read a little about Ruby on Rails. Will somebody list one site that's on Rails and is worth a flip? I've seen the hype, but I'd love to see a site that talks the talk. Thanks!
The problem is that MySQL has the lion's share of the market, despite being (relatively speaking) crap. It's a lot like windows in that respect: if you want to ensure that a machine you sell can run random software for grannies, you (sadly) generally put windows on it. Likewise, if you want to ensure easy webapp development, you go with the database that can work with lots of other stuff.
That said, it's ass-backwards. People should fix the bug --- that some software doesn't have a database abstraction layer --- and then choose that best DB.
Mongrel is a web server, hence this package includes a web server (unless it doesn't actually contain Mongrel, despite what the writeup says). Also, Ruby 1.8.6 comes with WEBrick, which is a the web server Rails uses by default...
Anyway isn't a simplified Rails installer for Linux kind of redundant? Most newer Linux distros I've seen already have a native package that installs Ruby on Rails and all its dependencies. Most people will probably find the Instant Rails package a lot more useful, since it does the same for Windows.
That is all.
After months of hard work I finally bring Debian/Ubuntu/Xandros/[derivativus infinitum] users a computer program that will not only download the latest RoR development packages for you, it will also notify you of new versions when they become available later.
Moreso, all the packages I provide are registered in a special database so that should you choose to remove the below packages, you can do so with ease using a GUI button or the command line!
Please download the following code into your computer terminal and compile it by hitting ENTER (one-key compile for convenience).
sudo apt-get update ; sudo apt-get install rails ruby rubygems libruby1.8-extras mysql libncurses-ruby openssl libzlib-ruby
The above program is licensed under the "Why Make It Harder Than It Needs 2B License". Please use this link to make a donation to my project.
Four URLs, and I haven't ever heard of any of them. And I get around on the Web (2.0 Aaarrrgggg!!!).
This is my main gripe with RoR: It's boasted into the stratosphere by zealots, but hasn't proven itself in The Real World at all. PHP, PERL, Python, etc on the other hand have proven themselves more then enough. Penny-arcade is about the only widely known site I've ever heard of running on RoR, and from what I read, it took a lot of static page generation to keep it fast enough.
That and the fact that RoR proponents somehow have the notion that RoR is a magical elixer which will cure all your web-dev problems and that it's somehow soooo much better than every other thing out there. RoR is nothing more than a framework with a bunch of (really neat) libs that existed for other languages way before RoR came into the picture.
I'll wait a while before putting all my eggs in one basket. Until then, I'll happily keep on using PHP and Python for my web development.
RoR's ActiveRecord makes it easy to use sqlite for development/testing and mysql/postgresql/etc for production (if desired.)
For the goals of LinRails, they would've been better served by packaging sqlite 3.4 instead of mysql.
Unlike mysql or postgresql, sqlite doesn't require a separate server process and it is ideal for:
* learning RoR
* testing RoR
* websites with few concurrent users writing data
* websites running in a VM with limited memory
And lastly, it wouldn't scare noobs as much just in case they are already running mysql and wondering if installing this package might break things.
A child with a hammer sees everything as a nail--much like developers and their favorite language|database|OS|...
We have Oracle 8, Sybase 12 and postgresql 8 (I think).
The whole factory is run off of postgresql.
The financial system is run off of Oracle.
The timesheet system is run off of Sybase.
Guess the systems which gave the most and least problems.
The winner is PostgreSQL. Untouched for months, perhaps even years. Next we have Oracle which is a pain in the arse to manage but never failed. and last place came sybase which had to be touched, managed and/or restarted regularly[1].
In terms of transactions, the factory systems took an absolute pounding, the financial system was used extensively daily and the timesheet system got maybe thousand updates per day.
PostgreSQL's largest benefit is reliability.
[1] Clearly these attributes are what made Sybase the product of choice for Microsoft to build their enterprise database management system upon.
Deleted
The Ruby bundles for Windows have their place but for Linux and OS X, just build Ruby from source, install gems, and you are good to go. Once Ruby and gem are installed use gem for everything.
/usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8 - location of Ruby source code for standard libraries on my system /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems - location of local gem installs (often contain examples/tests and documentation files) on my system
A bit off topic, but useful advice: I set up editor projects (TextMate, gedit, etc.) for:
1.
2.
When you are using a standard library or a gem it is great to have the source right in front of you for reference.
I can, on the other hand, highly recommend Wicket, its what we used to build Thoof, and so-far its scaling very well indeed.
Slashdot frontpage announces the release of a Linux binary package?? Without the intention of mocking it! I never tought I'd see this.
sudo aptitude install rails
Any questions?
Oh, and regarding foobarf00's reply: All the distributions strive to do exactly the same. Why would you want to keep track of versioning at two different upstream repositories (or... Do you use Gems? Well, s/two/many/ if you please) when you can keep all of your system's versions synchronized with The One True Source?
As a frustrated Windows user who would like to switch to Linux but can't get it to work, let me explain this to you:
.exe always works regardless of what Windows version I'm using, while a Linux package generally doesn't work on the Linux distro I'm trying.
.exe that will fix my internet connection, it's rather obvious to me that I can download the .exe from another PC, put it on a USB key and run it on my own PC. however, if I get an apt-get line to help me fix my internet connection, I have absolutely no clue what to do with it.
1) in my experience a Windows
2) if I'm given a link to a
on freaking linux, you really ought to turn in any certifications or degrees you've recieved with regards to computers.
I completely second the above statement. Nothing is more stupid then creating a package of your own, that installs other software bypassing the package manager. Since there is no oversight/credibility, it is a very good way to root other machines: just release something that appears to be usefull and install a little backdoor in it. Make sure the payload is delayed to avoid immediate detection, you can just hide it somewhere in that huge tarball as nobody will like to sift through all that stuff.
That is a very good reason to only install software through your package manager combined with trusted repositories. The way to do this thing properly, is to make a metapackage that depends on the packages you want installed and as a post-install edit the configfiles that you need for the whole to function. When you have made that package and you are not a debian or ubuntu developer, get in contact with some and find out what the proper procedures are to get your package in the distro. That way, other people will vet your package, point out those bugs and make sure that it works together with the rest of the distro.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Zope. - What Rails wants to be when it grows up.
Also be sure to check out Plone, Symfony, Django, CakePHP, Prado and Turbogears before you blindly join the overhyped Rails bandwagon.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
If rails (or any other multi-tier app using an RDBMS) wants to get real street cred, it needs to drop MySQL and use something real, like PostgreSQL, as the default database engine. Too many little projects are growing up and can't scale. And no, rails does not completely abstract the database away. There are plenty of little quirky things that get built in that can make migrating difficult.
I don't know how such a wildly incorrect post got rated informative. Rails runs in Apache2 just fine, just about any (cheap) rails host you'll find is running apache 2. It does use FastCGI. Lighttpd works too. Mongrel is generally used by forwarding requests back to several mongrels by an apache process running mod_proxy_balance or something like pound.
This is not a newsworthy item. Someone compiled some pre-existing (and buzzword compliant) programs and released them. When I want this kind of news I go to Freshmeat.net.
Is it possible that M$ is hyping Ruby on the sly? RoR is a somewhat dead-end, somewhat slow, somewhat too complicated, somewhat isolated system. Segmenting the LAMP crowd would be a logical strategy for M$ (and it'll help their Netcraft webserver survey numbers). Also, Ruby's incredible hype has for the most part coincided with the development and release cycle of M$'s new dynamic web site development tools.
I found Ruby to be one of the easiest environments to get up and running quickly already.
It's a one-liner apt-get, and then let "gem" to the rest for you (kind of like apt-get/cpan for Ruby packages).
Seems like a slight non-story to me.
-dale
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
loaded slow as shit for me.. for 1 login page
"Do the Lin---ls rock!"
See this blast from the past.
http://outcampaign.org/
Cake, Symfony -- stay the hell away from these crummy frameworks.
Care to elaborate? I'd like an educated opinion, why you think these aren't worth it. Do you have real experience with them or did you just dick around with each for 20 minutes? Or is it PHP that you don't like? I'm really interested. Propels XML is the only potential downside I can see. And that doesn't seen to much of a problem.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
It's good that you documented your struggles with installing eclipse. I too have found it a pain to install. But you have only summed up your problems (and is for a development environment FCS! you should be able to hold up your own trousers). You did not address any of the advantages of using the distribution provided package manager, some that I listed above (the rest is obvious, for instance reduction of maintenance).
Calling for a monolithic package will do away with a lot of these advantages. Your problem is not caused because of limitations of the package manager(s), but because nobody has taken the time to create a suitable meta-package. Exactly the same situation as for a monolithic eclipse package (I hope...).
You should call for an solution to the problem (1-click installing of eclipse) and not specify the technical implementation.
Like this blob-package the heisa was about, If the developers had been familiar with package-management concepts and knew/studied how to build a package, they could have made the superior solution in about the same time.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
If someone is really planning on seriously web-developing anything, it shouldn't be an issue to set up a Linux development environment on their own. They might actually learn something about how stuff works in the process.
RoR in general is weird like this -- yes, you might be able to "create a blogging application in 2 minutes" by calling some appropriate code-generation wizards, but does that really make you a developer who is able to actually do something on his own outside the scope of what is provided out of the box?
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
I have no relationship with the LinRails project, and this is the first I've heard of it, but even I can tell you why they include mysql database. They include it because it's more popular and quicker to get up and running.
The idea of LinRails isn't to spread good database ideology. It's to get Ruby on Rails up and running as quickly as possible for the greatest number of users.
The whole thing is irrelevant, anyhow. Chances are if you want to make a Rails app, you already know what database server you'll be using and already have your database configured. Even if you use LinRails, it takes 0.2 seconds of config file editing to point your app at postgres is that's your thing. Rails doesn't really care what database server it's connecting to.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Should we call it now LLMR (Linux + LightHttpd + MySQL + Rails), CMON, LAMP is already everywhere and with solutions like Akelos (see video at http://akelos-org.s3.amazonaws.com/akelos_php_fram ework_screencast.mov) you can have the magic of Rails conventions in your old C-style language ;)