Setup recipe for Rails Girls

Cooking time: 5min active / 15-30min passive

To build apps and other things with Ruby on Rails, we need to setup some software and the developer environment for your computer.

Follow the instructions for your operating system. If you run into any problems, don’t panic. Inform us at the event and we can solve it together.

Setup for OS X

1. Let’s check the version of the operating system.

Click the Apple menu and choose About this Mac.

Apple menu

2. In the window you will find the version of your operating system.

If your version number starts with 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, 10.9 or 10.10 this guide is for you. If it’s something else, we can setup your machine at the event.

About this Mac dialog

3a. If your OS X version is 10.9 or higher:

If your version number starts with 10.9 or 10.10, follow these steps. We are installing homebrew and rbenv.

3a1. Install Command line tools on terminal:

xcode-select --install

3a2. Install Homebrew:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

3a3. Install rbenv:

brew update
brew install rbenv rbenv-gem-rehash ruby-build
echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >> ~/.bash_profile
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/shims:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile
source ~/.bash_profile

3a4. Build Ruby with rbenv:

You can find the newest version of Ruby with the command “rbenv install -l”.

rbenv install 2.2.3

If you got “OpenSSL::SSL::SSLError: … : certificate verify failed” error, try it this way.

brew install curl-ca-bundle
cp /usr/local/opt/curl-ca-bundle/share/ca-bundle.crt `ruby -ropenssl -e 'puts OpenSSL::X509::DEFAULT_CERT_FILE'`

3a5. Set default Ruby:

rbenv global 2.2.3

3a6. Install rails:

gem i rails --no-ri --no-rdoc

3b. If your OS X version is 10.6, 10.7, or 10.8:

Download the RailsInstaller for your version of OS X:

Double click the downloaded file and it will unpack it into the current directory. Double click the the newly unpacked ‘RailsInstaller-1.0.4-osx-10.7.app’ or ‘RailsInstaller-1.0.4-osx-10.6.app’ and follow the instructions. It will open a README file with ‘Rails Installer OS X’ at the top. Please ignore the instructions in this file.

If the Rails version wasn’t the latest, you could update it using a following command on terminal.

gem update rails --no-ri --no-rdoc

Make sure that all works well by running the application generator command.

rails new railsgirls

4. Install a text editor to edit code files

For the workshop we recommend the text editor Atom.

If you are using Mac OS X 10.7 or older versions, you can use another editor Sublime Text 2.

5. Update your browser

Open whatbrowser.org and update your browser if you don’t have the latest version.

Now you should have a working Ruby on Rails programming setup. Congrats!

Setup for Windows

1. Install Rails

Download RailsInstaller and run it. Click through the installer using the default options.

Open Command Prompt with Ruby on Rails and run the following command:

rails -v

If the Rails version is less than 4, update it using a following command:

gem update rails --no-ri --no-rdoc

Make sure that all works well by running the application generator command.

rails new railsgirls
cd railsgirls
rails server

Possible errors

Gem::RemoteFetcher error

If you get this error when running rails new railsgirls or gem update rails:

Gem::RemoteFetcher::FetchError: SSL_connect returned=1 errno=0 state=SSLv3 read
server certificate B: certificate verify failed (https://rubygems.org/gems/i18n-
0.6.11.gem)

This means you have an older version of Rubygems and will need to update it manually first verify your Rubygems version

gem -v

If it is lower than 2.2.3 you will need to manually update it:

First download the ruby-gems-update gem. Move the file to c:\\rubygems-update-2.2.3.gem then run:

gem install --local c:\\rubygems-update-2.2.3.gem
update_rubygems --no-ri --no-rdoc
gem uninstall rubygems-update -x

Check your version of rubygems

gem -v

Make sure it is higher than 2.2.3. Re-run the command that was failing previously.

‘x64_mingw’ is not a valid platform` Error

Sometimes you get the following error when running rails server: 'x64_mingw' is not a valid platform If you experience this error after using the RailsInstaller you have to do a small edit to the file Gemfile:

Look at the bottom of the file. You will probably see something like this as one of the last lines in the file: gem 'tzinfo-data', platforms: [:mingw, :mswin, :x64_mingw]. If you have this line with :x64_mingw, then please delete the :x64_mingw part. In the end it should just say: 'tzinfo-data', platforms: [:mingw, :mswin]

After you did that, please use your Command Prompt again and type bundle update.

2. Install a text editor to edit code files

For the workshop we recommend the text editor Atom.

If you are using Windows Vista or older versions, you can use another editor Sublime Text 2.

Now you should have a working Ruby on Rails programming setup. Congrats!

3. Update your browser

If you use Internet Explorer, we recommend installing Firefox or Google Chrome.

Open whatbrowser.org and update your browser if you don’t have the latest version.

4. Install node

This is not strictly necessary, but it avoids a problem with and ExecJS::RuntimeError that might occur later (see stackoverflow).

Check your version of node

node --version

Make sure it is higher than 0.12.

Setup for Linux

1. Install Rails

To install the Ruby on Rails development environment you just need to copy the line below for your Linux distribution (Ubuntu or Fedora), paste it in the Terminal and press Enter. Enjoy the text flying on the screen; it will take quite some time. Grabbing a refreshing drink before starting is encouraged.

For Ubuntu:

bash < <(curl -sL https://raw.github.com/railsgirls/installation-scripts/master/rails-install-ubuntu.sh)

If you are going to use RVM installations with gnome-terminal, you’ll probably need to change it’s default options before you can see and use the right Ruby and Rails versions. Find out how: RVM documentation.

For Fedora:

bash < <(curl -sL https://raw.github.com/railsgirls/installation-scripts/master/rails-install-fedora.sh)

Make sure that all works well by running the application generator command.

rails new railsgirls
cd railsgirls
rails server

2. Install a text editor to edit code files

For the workshop we recommend the text editor Sublime Text.

3. Update your browser

Open whatbrowser.org and update your browser if you don’t have the latest version.

Now you should have a working Ruby on Rails programming setup. Congrats!

Virtual Machine

Instead of installing all tools on your machine, you can also set up a development environment in a Virtual Machine. Please find all the details here.

Using a Cloud Service

Instead of installing Ruby on Rails and an editor on your computer, you can use a webservice for development. All you need is a browser and an internet connection. This guide explains how to get started with nitrous.io. If you’re using a different service, they may use a different wording - e.g. ‘workspace’ instead of ‘box’, but the process is usually pretty similar.

Organizer: Nitrous is a paid service, but free for community usage purpose. Please contact Nitrous <pro [at] nitrous.io> to request a community account with the following list/information.

1. Update your browser

If you use Internet Explorer, we recommend installing Firefox or Google Chrome.

Open whatbrowser.org and update your browser if you don’t have the latest version.

2. Create an account

Go to https://nitrous.io and signup.

3. Setup a development box / workspace for ruby on rails

4. Find and restart your development box

5. Coding with your development box