asked on

Rails Newbie has major setup issue on windows

I've been plowing through rails tutorials and resources over the past several weeks hoping to get up to speed to help contribute on a rails project with colleagues. Setting up my environment has been very challenging.

Current Setup:
Windows XP
Rails 3.0.0.beta4*
Ruby 1.9.2dev
(I've installed 3.0.0rc2 via gem install rails --pre, it doesn't show when using the command "rails -v"

I am seemingly unable to install gems:
Example:

"gem install devise" results in:

Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing devise:
        ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

"C:/Documents and Settings/<USER NAME REMOVED>/.pik/rubies/Ruby-192dev-preview
3-1/bin/ruby.exe" extconf.rb
creating Makefile

make
'make' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

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I have these gems currently installed:
C:\groovy>gem list

*** LOCAL GEMS ***

abstract (1.0.0)
actionmailer (3.0.0.rc, 3.0.0.beta4)
actionpack (3.0.0.rc, 3.0.0.beta4)
active_merchant (1.5.2)
activemodel (3.0.0.rc, 3.0.0.beta4)
activerecord (3.0.0.rc, 3.0.0.beta4)
activeresource (3.0.0.rc, 3.0.0.beta4)
activesupport (3.0.0.rc, 3.0.0.beta4)
arel (0.4.0)
builder (2.1.2)
bundler (1.0.0.rc.5)
chronic (0.2.3)
coderay (0.8.357)
erubis (2.6.6)
hoe (2.6.1)
i18n (0.4.1)
json_pure (1.4.6)
lesstile (0.3.0)
mail (2.2.5)
mime-types (1.16)
minitest (1.6.0)
mocha (0.9.8)
mysql (2.8.1 x86-mingw32)
pg (0.9.0 x86-mingw32)
polyglot (0.3.1)
rack (1.2.1, 1.1.0)
rack-mount (0.6.9)
rack-test (0.5.4)
rails (3.0.0.rc, 3.0.0.beta4)
railties (3.0.0.rc, 3.0.0.beta4)
rake (0.8.7)
rdoc (2.5.8)
rspec (1.3.0)
rspec-rails (1.3.2)
rubyforge (2.0.4)
thor (0.14.0, 0.13.8)
treetop (1.4.8)
tzinfo (0.3.22)
warden (0.10.7)
will_paginate (2.3.12)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

ericnils

It sounds like you might need to:

Install Cygwin or
Add the make package to your Cygwin Install or
Add c:\cygwin\bin to your PATH (I'm assuming that c:\cygwin is your installation path for cygwin)

moondowg

ASKER

Thanks for the quick follow up.

I have cygwin install and have no idea where to find the make package. Downloaded the most recent version as was stated in many tutorials and "make" wasn't an install option.

the path includes the cygwin\bin directory.

And here's the really embarrassing question: why do I need cygwin? isn't this a means of replicating a linux environment? My brain is totally not wrapped around this and I just want to get coding -- something I sorta of understand...

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ericnils

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SOLUTION

JESii

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ericnils

Some progress has been made in the Rails on Windows department. I highly recommend reviewing Rails Installer here: http://www.rubyinside.com/rails-installer-ruby-and-rails-on-windows-in-a-single-install-4201.html