From: snowy@...
Date: 2007-07-19T05:25:14+09:00
Subject: Re: hpricot won't install on Ubuntu and complains because mkmf.rb is missing

On 6 Jul., 21:20, Xeno Campanoli <xcampan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ...
> Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
> ERROR:  While executing gem ... (Gem::Installer::ExtensionBuildError)
>     ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.
>
> ruby extconf.rb install mechanize
> extconf.rb:1:in `require': no such file to load -- mkmf (LoadError)
>         from extconf.rb:1

I got a similar error when I tried to install mongreal with

# gem install mongrel

In another tutorial I found the advice to download the ruby sources

# apt-get install ruby1.8-dev build-essential

After I did that I had no problems to install mongreal.
Maybe you have the same problem?

Martin