From: Sam Goldman <samgoldman@...>
Date: 2004-11-02T22:13:38+09:00
Subject: Re: installing ruby on MacOS X

I installed from source. In order to not overlap with the copy in /usr, 
I installed into /opt and put that in the beginning of my path. I didn't 
install into /usr/local because I have things in there I don't 
necessarily want at the beginning of my path (e.g. an updated version of 
zlib for special things, while I still want the default to link to the 
.dylib in /usr)

After that, anything I installed (either gems or source) use the copy in 
/opt and install into /opt. The system works fairly well.

Ruby also seems to have its own versioning system, where directories 
within /usr/lib/ruby indicate the version of the library used.

Steven Marcus wrote:
> Hi all!
> 
> Ruby newbie here.
> 
> I'd like to install and work with Ruby 1.8.x on MacOS X.
> I have found
>  http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?RubyOnMacintosh
> and
>  http://www.loudthinking.com/arc/000199.html
> to be helpful.
> 
> It appears that my options are
> 1) download the source and compile it myself
> 2) download a binary and install it
> 3) install via darwinports
> 4) install via fink
> 
> After installation I believe I can add ruby libraries
> 1) manually
> 2) as Ruby Gems
> 3) from the RAA
> 4) via darwinports if using 3 above
> 5) via fink if using 4 above
> 
> I imagine there are a number of trade offs to the above approaches.
> Also, there appears to be overlap between (darwinports|fink) and gems
> and RAA. As I write this darwinports appears to have a more active
> ruby community, judging from the fact that it offers 58 ports versus
> 16 for fink.
> 
> I'd like things to be painless and relatively automatic. By automatic, I
> mean that installing and especially upgrading libraries should be
> quick and painless.
> 
> Can someone share their experience?
> 
> TIA
> Steven Marcus
> 
>