I've um... broken Ruby

[Sharon Phillips]

Hi,

I've run amuck Sunday afternoon trying to install fxRuby and fox
under OSX, and after many hours of errors, trying mac-ports, fink,
building from source, updating to Ruby 1.8.6 (from 1.8.4) and ripping
various bits out and trying to replace them, I'm now in a complete mess.

Any ideas from anyone as to how I wipe Ruby and start from scratch.
I'm newish to the mac and unix. I can get around, edit files etc, but
don't have much understanding behind what I do (any advice here much
appreciated too). Just enough knowledge to be dangerous.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[John Joyce]

Hi,

I've run amuck Sunday afternoon trying to install fxRuby and fox
under OSX, and after many hours of errors, trying mac-ports, fink,
building from source, updating to Ruby 1.8.6 (from 1.8.4) and
ripping various bits out and trying to replace them, I'm now in a
complete mess.

Any ideas from anyone as to how I wipe Ruby and start from scratch.
I'm newish to the mac and unix. I can get around, edit files etc,
but don't have much understanding behind what I do (any advice here
much appreciated too). Just enough knowledge to be dangerous.

Cheers,
Dave

Uh, yeah, 1st of all... don't use more than one package manager on a
machine (any *nix). Fink or MacPorts not both. Results can be
unpredictable, though usually harmless.
Remove all of those. Remove all the stuff you installed.
Do a new clean install.
I recommend going with the building from source using the Hivelogic
installation guide. (google Ruby and OS X and Hivelogic, you will
find it, make sure to visit their home page first so that you find
the latest version of the installation guide)
This will give you more practice working at the unix command line,
but it will also help you become familiar with where and how stuff is
installed on your machine and in Ruby. While you're at it, pick up
the book "Learning Unix for OS X Tiger" (there is an older panther
version too) It is a gentle intro to unix. As a reference ( for any
type of unix) get "Unix in a Nutshell"

You really won't get hurt and it is actually quite useful to know a
lot of that stuff. What's more, it's a heck of a lot easier to
install Ruby manually than PHP!!

 

[Sharon Phillips]

Uh, yeah, 1st of all... don't use more than one package manager on
a machine (any *nix). Fink or MacPorts not both. Results can be
unpredictable, though usually harmless.
Remove all of those. Remove all the stuff you installed.
Do a new clean install.
I recommend going with the building from source using the Hivelogic
installation guide. (google Ruby and OS X and Hivelogic, you will
find it, make sure to visit their home page first so that you find
the latest version of the installation guide)
This will give you more practice working at the unix command line,
but it will also help you become familiar with where and how stuff
is installed on your machine and in Ruby. While you're at it, pick
up the book "Learning Unix for OS X Tiger" (there is an older
panther version too) It is a gentle intro to unix. As a reference
( for any type of unix) get "Unix in a Nutshell"

You really won't get hurt and it is actually quite useful to know a
lot of that stuff. What's more, it's a heck of a lot easier to
install Ruby manually than PHP!!

Thanks John,

I've seen the book I think, but have held off buying any Tiger books
for about a year now as Leopard was 'imminent'... Seems like it might
be a good idea anyway.

I'll try stripping it all and building from source. I'm a pretty
experiences Windows guy, but most of that knowledge is meaningless in
the *nix world, so here's a dumb question: How do I remove all the
stuff i installed? Finder doesn't seem to show a lot of places (which
is good), and I'm not familiar with where everything goes. Also, am I
limited to vi or pico when editing .profile files, or is it possible
to use a gui based editor?

Looks like I'll have to buy the book.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[Tim Hunter]

I'll try stripping it all and building from source. I'm a pretty
experiences Windows guy, but most of that knowledge is meaningless in
the *nix world, so here's a dumb question: How do I remove all the
stuff i installed? Finder doesn't seem to show a lot of places (which
is good), and I'm not familiar with where everything goes. Also, am I
limited to vi or pico when editing .profile files, or is it possible
to use a gui based editor?

Finder won't show you these directories, afaik. Start Terminal.app and
use a command line. Unlike Windows, OS X doesn't impose a particular
directory into which things must be installed. Instead you pick a
directory to install into and then add that directory to OS X's list of
places to look. To keep the list short there are some conventions. Very,
very critical programs are installed in /bin. Other programs and
libraries that the system needs are in /usr and its subdirectories. You
do not want to mess with these directories.

Locally installed programs and libraries are typically installed in
subdirectories of /usr/local. This is the default directory for most
generic installer programs. Fink installs things in directories rooted
at /sw. MacPorts installs things in directories rooted at /opt. If
you're really willing to go back to the starting gate you can simply
delete these two directories, although it means you'll have to reinstall
Fink or MacPorts if you wanted to use them again.

When you install Ruby "by hand," the default install directory is
/usr/local.

You can use any text editor to edit .profile as long as it doesn't
introduce formatting information into the file. That is, don't use a
"word processor" like Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.org Writer or OS X's
TextEdit.

Lastly, congratulations on learning how to use OS X! OS X is a
magnificent workhorse of an operating system. Yes, iLife and all that
are wonderful, but if all you ever do with your Mac is click on things
you're wasting a good part of your computer.

 

[Mikel Lindsaar]

On the topic of Finder, you can get to any directory you want by
typing Command-Shift-G (for Go to folder)

This then opens a dialog box and lets you type in a path (say, /usr )
which then displays that tree. It also unhides the directory branch
you are in at root for the duration of the Finder window you are in.

Usefull when you want to dig around.

Regards

Mikel
http://www.blognow.com.au/q

 

[John Joyce]

Thanks John,

I've seen the book I think, but have held off buying any Tiger
books for about a year now as Leopard was 'imminent'... Seems like
it might be a good idea anyway.

I'll try stripping it all and building from source. I'm a pretty
experiences Windows guy, but most of that knowledge is meaningless
in the *nix world, so here's a dumb question: How do I remove all
the stuff i installed? Finder doesn't seem to show a lot of places
(which is good), and I'm not familiar with where everything goes.
Also, am I limited to vi or pico when editing .profile files, or is
it possible to use a gui based editor?

Looks like I'll have to buy the book.

Cheers,
Dave

Oh yeah, you've got a lot to get up to speed on. Buy the tiger book,
pretty much all of it will still be valid with leopard. Probably all
of it. That and / or the Unix in A Nutshell book will also give you
advice about installing and uninstalling things like Fink and MacPorts.

The Unix in a Nutshell is actually even better. It covers all the OS
X specific stuff too.
The things you'll to learn about are the dot files ( they're just
hidden from the user by the dot )
and how to configure and control Bash. It's a lot and can be
confusing at first, but you don't need to memorize the stuff, just
have a good reference book or 2 handy. The nice thing about the
Nutshell book is that it also covers Linux and Solaris. This is
useful for web hosting ...
There is a free GUI text editor called TextWrangler. It's great and
free, but for Ruby in particular, the best is TextMate and it is
about 50 dollars, but very much worth it. There is also a TextMate
book from the Pragmatic Programmers, publishers of the pickaxe book
and it is available cheaply as a pdf ebook.

One more tip. in Terminal.app in OS X, you can save a copy of all the
stuff you do in a session. This can be useful to refer back to later.
Uninstalling is mostly a matter of deleting things.
I'm going to leave it to you to buy a book and get the commands,
because they'll also give you the details and warnings.
Unix is powerful.

Oh yeah, there is a Dashboard Widget for OS X that allows you to turn
on/off hidden files in the GUI conveniently. you can download free
from the apple site via Apple Menu > OS X Software...

 

[Tim Hunter]

On the topic of Finder, you can get to any directory you want by
typing Command-Shift-G (for Go to folder)

This then opens a dialog box and lets you type in a path (say, /usr )
which then displays that tree. It also unhides the directory branch
you are in at root for the duration of the Finder window you are in.

Usefull when you want to dig around.

Interesting. Thanks. I guess I'm just a command-line kinda guy, though.
Much as I love my GUI apps like iTunes and Safari and TextMate, when I
want to do anything "serious" I always go to the command line. Somehow I
just trust find/grep/ls/cd/rm and the others.

 

[Mikel Lindsaar]

Oh, so true... but the GUI is really handy when you want to just
delete 11 out of 50 files.... command click click shift click drag
delete.



Mikel

 

[Tim Hunter]

Oh, so true... but the GUI is really handy when you want to just
delete 11 out of 50 files.... command click click shift click drag
delete.



Mikel

Agreed. I think what we're both saying is that the more tools you have
in your toolbox the easier your work can be. Those folks who only know
clicking are missing out on a lot of good tools.

 

[Gregory Brown]

Oh, so true... but the GUI is really handy when you want to just
delete 11 out of 50 files.... command click click shift click drag
delete.

When you respond without quoting context and top post, it makes it
very difficult to read your emails.

 

[Sharon Phillips]

Oh yeah, you've got a lot to get up to speed on. Buy the tiger

book, pretty much all of it will still be valid with leopard.
Probably all of it. That and / or the Unix in A Nutshell book will
also give you advice about installing and uninstalling things like
Fink and MacPorts.

I've found the Tiger book in the local technical bookshop (insert
plug for bookware.com.au here) and shall pick it up later this week
(better run it by my wife first ;-).

Thanks to everyone for your comments and advice. Looks like I've a
bit to learn. Looking forward to it.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[John Joyce]

I've found the Tiger book in the local technical bookshop (insert
plug for bookware.com.au here) and shall pick it up later this week
(better run it by my wife first ;-).

Thanks to everyone for your comments and advice. Looks like I've a
bit to learn. Looking forward to it.

Cheers,
Dave

No worries, it probably won't be long before you're answering my
questions!