Simply Rails 2 install issue

[EoinDubh]

I have worked with php for awhile and am taking a look at moving to RoR. I am working my way through Simply Rails 2 and ran into a problem with installing. I am running on Windows XP 32-bit SP3. The Ruby version that was installed is ruby 1.8.6 (2007-09-24 patchlevel 111) [i386-mswin32] and the Rails version is 3.2.5. The Apache version is 1.3.33.

I downloaded InstantRails-2.0-win.zip and followed the instruction to install it. I have the InstantRails console up but when I entered the

gem update

command, I started seeing errors. Here is the output from the window ( the errors have been highlighted and are in red text):

C:\INSTAN~1>CD C:\InstantRails

C:\InstantRails>PATH C:\InstantRails\ruby\bin;C:\InstantRails\mysql\bin;C:\Progr
am Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live;C:\Program Files\Common File
s\ArcSoft\Bin;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS
\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0;C:\Program Files\QuickTime\QTSystem\;C:\Program
 Files\Common Files\DivX Shared\;C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI.ACE\Core-
Static;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live;C:\INSTAN~1\r
uby\bin;C:\INSTAN~1\Apache;C:\INSTAN~1\PHP

C:\InstantRails>cd rails_apps

C:\InstantRails\rails_apps>dir
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is B06F-07AB

 Directory of C:\InstantRails\rails_apps

02/04/2010  09:34 AM    <DIR>          .
02/04/2010  09:34 AM    <DIR>          ..
02/04/2010  09:34 AM    <DIR>          .metadata
02/04/2010  09:34 AM    <DIR>          cookbook
02/04/2010  09:35 AM    <DIR>          typo-2.6.0
               0 File(s)              0 bytes
               5 Dir(s)  686,822,768,640 bytes free

C:\InstantRails\rails_apps>gem update
Updating installed gems
Updating actionmailer
Successfully installed activesupport-2.3.5
Successfully installed rack-1.0.1
Successfully installed actionpack-2.3.5
Successfully installed actionmailer-2.3.5
Updating activerecord
Successfully installed activerecord-2.3.5
Updating activeresource
Successfully installed activeresource-2.3.5
Updating capistrano
Successfully installed net-ssh-2.0.19
Successfully installed net-sftp-2.0.4
Successfully installed net-scp-1.0.2
Successfully installed net-ssh-gateway-1.0.1
Successfully installed capistrano-2.5.14
Updating fxri
Successfully installed fxri-0.3.7
Updating fxruby
Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing fxruby:
        ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

C:/InstantRails/ruby/bin/ruby.exe extconf.rb
*** extconf.rb failed ***
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
necessary libraries and/or headers.  Check the mkmf.log file for more
details.  You may need configuration options.

Provided configuration options:
        --with-opt-dir
        --without-opt-dir
        --with-opt-include
        --without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include
        --with-opt-lib
        --without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib
        --with-make-prog
        --srcdir=.
        --curdir
        --ruby=C:/InstantRails/ruby/bin/ruby
        --with-fox-dir
        --without-fox-dir
        --with-fox-include
        --without-fox-include=${fox-dir}/include
        --with-fox-lib
        --without-fox-lib=${fox-dir}/lib
        --with-fxscintilla-dir
        --without-fxscintilla-dir
        --with-fxscintilla-include
        --without-fxscintilla-include=${fxscintilla-dir}/include
        --with-fxscintilla-lib
        --without-fxscintilla-lib=${fxscintilla-dir}/lib
extconf.rb:31:in `find_installed_fox_version': couldn't find FOX header files (R
untimeError)
        from extconf.rb:125

Gem files will remain installed in C:/InstantRails/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/f
xruby-1.6.20 for inspection.
Results logged to C:/InstantRails/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fxruby-1.6.20/ext/
fox16/gem_make.out
Updating highline
Successfully installed highline-1.5.2
Updating hpricot
Successfully installed hpricot-0.8.2-x86-mswin32
Updating log4r
Successfully installed log4r-1.1.4
Updating mongrel
Successfully installed mongrel-1.1.5-x86-mswin32-60
Updating mysql
Successfully installed mysql-2.8.1-x86-mswin32
Updating rails
Successfully installed rake-0.8.7
Successfully installed rails-2.3.5
Updating sqlite3-ruby
Successfully installed sqlite3-ruby-1.2.5-x86-mswin32
Updating win32-api
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (Gem::GemNotFoundException)
    could not find gem win32-api locally or in a repository

Any pointers would be appreciated.

[ReggieB]

Personally, I've always found InstantRails more trouble than it is worth. It is OK if your only priority is getting a rails environment up and running in the shortest possible time, or if you want to be a little lazy in a tutorial. Other wise, it is so simple to set up rails on Windows without InstantRails that it isn't worth doing in my opinion.

So I'd suggest uninstalling InstantRails and then install Ruby via the oneclick rubyinstaller. There are instructions on how to set up different rails environments on the rubyinstaller web site.

Personally, I'd run rails with MySQL rather than SQLite, mainly because the MySQL management tools are so good. Unfortunately, this moment doesn't seem to be a good one to highlight this point as the new "workbench" doesn't seem quite as polished as the old GUI admin tools were. However, the beta version shows great potential (and is the version (5.2) you'll need if you want the GUI tool to run SQL queries for testing etc.). Just a shame they pulled the old GUI tools before the workbench had all the facilities of the old system.

[Mittineague]

I wholeheartedly second ReggieB's suggestion of uninstalling InstantRails and using the one-click installer. (A bit of a misnomer, I didn't count but it was more than 1 )

I struggled with InstantRails for a while but had nothing but problem after problem. It took a bit of reading instructions to get the one-click installed, but it went smoothly.