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Rails on Windows instructions

Software	Location
Ruby & Devkit	http://rubyinstaller.org/downloads/
Gzip	http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/gzip.htm
NodeJS	https://nodejs.org/en/download
SQLite	https://www.sqlite.org/download.html
Tar	http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/gtar.htm

Download...

1. Ruby 2.3.0

• do not download 'Ruby 2.3.0 (x64)'
• these instructions cover the 32 bit install of Ruby which will work on both 32 and 64 bit machines

2. DevKit-mingw64-32-4.7.2-20130224-1151-sfx.exe

• pay special attention to the name -- important to grab the file with '64-32' in the name

3. Gzip

• choose the zipped binary file

4. NodeJS

• choose the 32 bit 'Windows Binary (.exe)'

5. SQLite

• choose the 'autoconf' source: sqlite-autoconf-3120200.tar.gz

6. Tar

• choose the binary 'Setup' which is an installer

Initial setup

Open the command prompt, 'cmd'. Create a directory off of the root of your drive, for most people this will be c:, type the following to create the row directory and then navigate to it with 'cd' or change directory.

C:\Users\Jon>mkdir \row
C:\Users\Jon>cd \row

If you've typed the above correctly, the command prompt should look like:

C:\row>

Next, we want to create a batch file which we'll use to somewhat consolidate and isolate our Rails environment. At the prompt, type:

C:\row>notepad row.bat

Notepad should have started and will prompt you to create the file, choose yes. Next add the following to the file:

REM Set PATH to directories as required
set PATH=c:\windows;c:\windows\system32

REM Start a command prompt with a title and defaulting to the \row directory
start "Rails on Windows" /D \row

Save the file and close notepad. At the command prompt type the following and hit enter:

C:\row>row.bat

If the batch file was created properly, a new cmd prompt window should have opened named 'Rails on Windows'.

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.10240]
(c) 2015 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\row>

Next, lets launch explorer (the dot says to open explorer in the current directory):

C:\row>explorer .

Right-click on row.bat and select 'Send to' -> 'Desktop (create shortcut). With that, you'll be able to conveniently launch the Rails on Windows command prompt from the Desktop.

Install Ruby and Devkit

• Run the ruby installer and choose c:\row\local as the installation location.
• Run the devkit self-extracting exe file, and extract to c:\row\local

Close all previous instances of the Rails on Windows command prompt and relaunch using the short-cut created on the Desktop. Having now installed Ruby if we try to run ruby to get the version you'll see that we get an error:

C:\row>ruby -v
'ruby' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

C:\row>

The reason for this error is that we haven't updated the PATH variable to include the path to the directory containing the Ruby executable. Open row.bat with Notepad:

C:\row>notepad row.bat

Next add 'c:\row\local\bin' to the PATH variable:

REM Set PATH to directories as required
set PATH=c:\windows;c:\windows\system32
set PATH=%PATH%;c:\row\local\bin

REM Start a command prompt with a title and defaulting to the \row directory
start "Rails on Windows" /D \row

Change directory to the 'local' directory:

C:\row>cd local

Once in the 'local' directory, run the following:

C:\row\local>ruby dk.rb init

You should see the following output:

C:\row\local>ruby dk.rb init
[INFO] found RubyInstaller v2.3.0 at C:/row/local

Initialization complete! Please review and modify the auto-generated
'config.yml' file to ensure it contains the root directories to all
of the installed Rubies you want enhanced by the DevKit.

C:\row\local>

With the devkit initialization complete, next we'll install devkit:

C:\row\local>ruby dk.rb install

Upgrade command prompt to use Bash

Devkit provides some useful GNU tools for compiling source code on Windows. One of the tools is Bash, a common shell program. Along with enhanced features over Windows command-prompt, it will facilitate compiling source code (sqlite for example) required for our Rails install. It's also helpful to become introduced to Bash as Bash is a very common shell available in Unix/Linux systems. If you choose to become more serious about Rails development, you will move on to a Linux/Unix environment for development.

Double-click the row.bat shortcut on your desktop to launch the Rails on Windows command prompt. Once open, type:

C:\row>notepad row.bat

Next, we need to add a couple directories to the PATH variable. We also want to set the HOME variable which will be useful for our bash shell. Finally, see how we add 'bash' to the end of the 'start' command:

REM Set PATH to directories as required
set PATH=c:\windows;c:\windows\system32
set PATH=%PATH%;c:\row\local\bin
set PATH=%PATH%;c:\row\local\mingw\bin

REM Set HOME, useful for bash
set HOME=c:\row

REM Start a command prompt with a title and defaulting to the \row directory
start "Rails on Windows" /D \row bash

Save row.bat and close notepad. Try launching row.bat again and notice now the command-prompt should look something like:

bash-3.1$ 

The prompt now says bash-3.1$ but we can configure it to be more useful. Create a file called .bashrc:

bash-3.1$ notepad .bashrc

Add the following lines:

PS1="[\u@\h \W]\$ "
PS2="> "

Save the file, close the command prompt windows and lets double-click the row.bat shortcut again. Now, what you should see is something similar to:

[Jon@Jon-PC ~]$

The .bashrc file is run everytime the bash shell starts up. So, in this case, when bash starts the PS1 and PS2 environment variables are set to configure the prompt in the format we see. You can configure the shell's prompt any way you like. This configuration I've chosen is common which lists the user@host and lists the current directory. (~ refers to the HOME directory, so for example if you want to change directory back to HOME you'd simply type: cd ~.

Install tar and gzip

In the Unix/Linux world, source code is often distributed as a compressed tar of files. Tar combines the files into one and gzip is often used to compress the file.

To install 'tar', double-click on the tar exe (tar-1.13-1-bin.exe) to launch the installer. Choose c:\row\local for the installation location.

To install 'gzip', right-click on 'gzip-1.3.12-1-bin.zip' and select 'Extract all' to unzip the archive to c:\row\local.

Now, to test that the installations of gzip and tar have been successful, double-click row.bat shortcut and type the following:

[Jon@Jon-PC src]$ where gzip
c:\row\local\bin\gzip.exe
[Jon@Jon-PC src]$ where tar
c:\row\local\bin\tar.exe
[Jon@Jon-PC src]$

The 'where' command should indicated the path to each executable.

Install SQLite

To install SQLite, first create a directory under local called src and change directory to it:

[Jon@Jon-PC ~]$ cd local
[Jon@Jon-PC local]$ mkdir src
[Jon@Jon-PC local]$ cd src
[Jon@Jon-PC src]$ 

Next, using explorer, copy sqlite-autoconf-3120200.tar.gz from your downloads folder/directory and paste it in c:\row\local\src.

With the sqlite src in the src directory, first uncompress the file:

[Jon@Jon-PC src]$ gzip -d sqlite-autoconf-3090200.tar.gz
[Jon@Jon-PC src]$ 

Now when you do an 'ls' you should see the following:

[Jon@Jon-PC src]$ ls -al
total 8764
drwxr-xr-x  2 Jon Administrators       0 Dec 10 16:58 .
drwxr-xr-x 16 Jon Administrators    4096 Dec  8 17:42 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 Jon Administrators 8970240 Dec  8 17:41 sqlite-autoconf-3120200.tar

Next we will extract the tar file:

[Jon@Jon-PC src]$ tar -xvf sqlite-autoconf-3120200.tar

After you've watched the contents extracted into the sqlite-autoconf-3120200, change directory or 'cd' into it:

[Jon@Jon-PC src]$ cd sqlite-autoconf-3120200

[Jon@Jon-PC sqlite-autoconf-3120200]$ ./configure --prefix=/c/row/local

[Jon@Jon-PC sqlite-autoconf-3120200]$ make

[Jon@Jon-PC sqlite-autoconf-3120200]$ make install

To verify sqlite is installed, try running the 'sqlite3' command:

[Jon@Jon-PC sqlite-autoconf-3120200]$ sqlite3
SQLite version 3.12.2 2016-04-18 17:30:31
Enter ".help" for usage hints.
Connected to a transient in-memory database.
Use ".open FILENAME" to reopen on a persistent database.
sqlite>

If you see the above, sqlite installed successfully. To exit, type '.q' and press enter. Alternatively hit ctrl-c:

sqlite> .q
[Jon@Jon-PC sqlite-autoconf-3120200]$

-- install atom -- use sqlite3 gem test code to prove gem is installed

gem install bundler bundle config build.sqlite3 --with-sqlite3-include=/c/row/local/include --with-sqlite3-lib=/c/row/local/lib

• install rails gem install rails

make sure sqlite3-1.3.11-x86-mingw32 is uninstalled gem uninstall sqlite3 (remove mingw32)

nokogiri apparently doesn't work with 2.3 on windows... use gem install -f rails add gem 'nokogiri', '>=1.6.8.rc3' to Gemfile

copy node.exe to /c/local/bin dir