Question about Ruby initial development

Hi everyone

Somewhere in the Ruby FAQ it says that Ruby is developed on Linux
using ‘C’. Does anybody know which distribution of Linux was/is used
for doing this, (a) in the original stages of development and (b) more
recently ?

Also, presumably some Linux distributions are more compatible with
Ruby than others ? (eg does anyone run Ruby on Slackware ?) - any
guidance on this would be gratefully received.

Best regards

    Griff Phillips

Hello –

Also, presumably some Linux distributions are more compatible with
Ruby than others ? (eg does anyone run Ruby on Slackware ?) - any
guidance on this would be gratefully received.

Heavens – you make Slackware sound so exotic :slight_smile: Actually the
distribution you’re using shouldn’t make any difference at all. (I’ve
run Ruby on Slackware, SuSE, Gentoo, and Red Hat.) Some distributions
include Ruby – and hopefully more will be doing that – but you
should be able to build and install it without any trouble even if
it isn’t included by default.

David

···

On Wed, 28 Aug 2002, Griff wrote:


David Alan Black
home: dblack@candle.superlink.net
work: blackdav@shu.edu
Web: http://pirate.shu.edu/~blackdav

Hi everyone

Somewhere in the Ruby FAQ it says that Ruby is developed on Linux
using ‘C’. Does anybody know which distribution of Linux was/is used
for doing this, (a) in the original stages of development and (b) more
recently ?

I think I read somewhere matz currently uses Debian GNU/Linux.
The initial development (circa Feb 1993) wasn’t done on Linux, but on some
propietary Un*x.

Also, presumably some Linux distributions are more compatible with
Ruby than others ? (eg does anyone run Ruby on Slackware ?) - any
guidance on this would be gratefully received.

I don’t believe there’s any distribution-specific thing in Ruby.
Sure, it is easier to do
apt-get install racc
than to go get the source, unpack and install, but there’s no reason you
can’t use Ruby in any distribution you like.

BTW, Ruby isn’t limited to Linux, and it wouldn’t make much sense if
Ruby could run in, say, Windows, but not in Slackware :slight_smile:

···

On Wed, Aug 28, 2002 at 08:03:50PM +0900, Griff wrote:


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) | (| | |
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Running Debian GNU/Linux Sid (unstable)
batsman dot geo at yahoo dot com

abuse me. I’m so lame I sent a bug report to debian-devel-changes
– Seen on #Debian

I use Ruby on Red Hat, Debian, SuSE and Slackware currently, and have had no
difficulty with Ruby on any of them. Slackware doesn’t come with Ruby, and
SuSE had an outdated version last I checked. Debian has a recent version,
but last time I did a complete install with mod_ruby and eruby, it
configured it in such a way that eruby wasn’t taking advantage of mod_ruby.

So, I compile it all myself now, and everything works very well, even when
passing different prefixes to ‘configure’ or using something like Stow. I
think you’ll find that Ruby is pretty well behaved, and if you check out
Triple-R you’ll see that it is a well-tested language also, so you can see
for yourself what platforms it is failing on and which versions are stable.

Most ruby modules and classes you will download have a standard way of
determining where Ruby is installed and where local site libraries should
go, so once Ruby is installed everything else should ‘just work’.

There is so much talk about standards for Linux for directory structures and
installation tools and whatnot, but ever since the advent of autoconf it
hasn’t really mattered, at least to someone who prefers compiling.

–gabriel

Griff wrote:

···

Also, presumably some Linux distributions are more compatible with
Ruby than others ? (eg does anyone run Ruby on Slackware ?) - any
guidance on this would be gratefully received.

Hi,

Somewhere in the Ruby FAQ it says that Ruby is developed on Linux
using ‘C’. Does anybody know which distribution of Linux was/is used
for doing this, (a) in the original stages of development and (b) more
recently ?

(a) I started the development of Ruby on Sony NEWS-OS 3.x (it is a BSD
flavored UNIX). Then moved to SunOS 4.x and Linux. My first
Linux was SLS Linux, when kernel version was somewhere around 0.99.

(b) I’m currently using Debian/GNU Linux (sid).

Also, presumably some Linux distributions are more compatible with
Ruby than others ? (eg does anyone run Ruby on Slackware ?) - any
guidance on this would be gratefully received.

If you use Debian, you almost never need to compile major Ruby related
programs. They come as packages. Thanks to the maintainers,
especially Akira Yamada. But most of UNIX compatible OSes are as
compatible as Debian, if you compile programs by yourself.

						matz.
···

In message “question about Ruby initial development” on 02/08/28, Griff griffph@aol.com writes: