From: Randy Kramer <rhkramer@...>
Date: 2006-03-22T00:09:14+09:00
Subject: Help with Ruby/TK install on Mandriva2006

My Ruby install on Mandriva2006 (from, iirc, the Mandriva package(s)) appears 
to be borked.  One symptom: require 'tk' in irb returns "LoadError: No such 
file to load -- tk ..."

Is anybody here using Ruby and TK successfully on Mandriva2006?  If so, how 
did you install it (RPMdrake?) and which packages did you have to install.

IIRC, I simply (during the Mandriva2006 install (not an update)) made sure 
that Ruby was selected--I don't remember if there was one or more packages 
related to Ruby.  

I'm pretty sure I have TK installed (or at least TCL) because running either 
tclsh or wish gives me a prompt (wish on a popup).  However, looking 
in /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/ I don't see a tk.rb package (I do see multi-tk.rb and 
remote-tk.rb).

My goal is to use TkHTML in some Ruby programs, so after I get TK working I'll 
want to download and get TkHTML working.

I'm wondering what my best way forward is, I can see a few options:

   * uninstall Ruby (and related packages) and try reinstalling it (from 
Mandriva2006 rpms) --I have a vague recollection that, during the 
Mandriva2006 install, it couldn't find some packages or files--maybe some of 
those were related to Ruby or TK, and maybe I need to download new copies of 
the Ruby related files before trying to install.

   * This machine used to run Mandrake 10 (or 10.1, I forget atm).  Anyway, I 
did install Ruby successfully, iirc, perhaps from source at that time, so, in 
other places on my disk, I have some of the files I might need to make Ruby / 
TK work.  (For example, I have tk.rb in directory:

/rhk/work/ruby/ruby-1.8.2/ext/tk/lib/

I could try simply copying it (and maybe all files in that directory) 
to /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/.  (I might do that soon, just to see what happens, but 
I thought I'd try asking for advice first--I don't want to make things worse, 
but, on the other hand, if I decide to do a complete uninstall and reinstall, 
this shouldn't hurt anything.

   * the version of Ruby that comes with Mandrake2006 is 1.8.2--maybe I'd do 
better to update to 1.8.4 by installing from source?  (As mentioned above, I 
managed that once, but I always regard a source installation as a hit or miss 
proposition--I'm never confident that it will work, and if it doesn't, I'm 
also left with no clue about how to proceed (sometimes I can tell that I'm 
missing a "dependancy" and can identify what I need, sometimes I can't.

If it happens that I need Ruby 1.8.4 (or .3) to work with TkHTML, then I 
definitely want to go that route (or find a binary RPM (for Ruby 1.8.4) for 
Mandriva2006--I googled a few weeks ago and didn't find one).

   * Maybe I have some of the Ruby paths set wrong (well, I didn't change 
them--but maybe I could to pick up the tk.rb file in its current directory).

Any help appreciated!
Randy Kramer