Runtime Error Installing Ruby 1.8.5

[muraii]

Hi there,

I'm trying to get amaroK installed on my minimalist Slackware 10.2
machine. I know: "minimalist" and "amaroK" might not be intuitively
concurrent. Still, I thought I'd give it a whirl.

Of the three mandatory dependencies, I have two successfully installed:
kdelibs (required installing qt) and taglib. Ruby, though, is giving
me fits during installation.

Here's the error that kills things:

"/home/muraii/temp/ruby-1.8.5-p2/lib/fileutils.rb:1239:in `copy':
unknown file type: ./.ext/. (RuntimeError)"

I've googled the hell out of it, but can only seem to find one person
who's <a href
="http://www.artima.com/forums/flat.jsp?forum=123&thread=186273">publicized
having the problem</a> <em>and</em> who fixed it. That person made
readline and then copied a resultant readline.bundle file into the Ruby
install directory. I suppose the installing architecture is a bit
different on OS X, that person's machine, from Linux, as I only manage
to make a readline.so file (or that's the only one that looks
important), which I copied to /usr/local/lib/ alongside the ruby
executable in /usr/local/bin. Nothing.

Ruby installed into /usr/local/bin/, and responds to "$ ruby -v"; but
when I type only "$ ruby", it hangs. I don't imagine it's properly
installed.

I've already got some readline libraries installed, so I'm not sure
what this one has to do with anything. I know I could likely just grab
a package from linuxpackages, but I'd prefer to go manual here.

Anyone have any experience or thoughts?

Thanks,

Daniel

 

[Lei Ming]

Ruby installed into /usr/local/bin/, and responds to "$ ruby -v"; but
when I type only "$ ruby", it hangs. I don't imagine it's properly

Are you sure it's really hanging? Maybe it's just waiting for your
input.

Type this when it hangs:

puts 'Hello world!'

Press <Return> and Ctrl-D. See if it works.

By the way, since you use Slackware, if you want to compile ruby (or any
software) from source, I suggest you use checkinstall so uninstalling or
upgrading will be easier.

Thanks,
Lei Ming

 

[muraii]

Are you sure it's really hanging? Maybe it's just waiting for your
input.

Type this when it hangs:

puts 'Hello world!'

Press <Return> and Ctrl-D. See if it works.

By the way, since you use Slackware, if you want to compile ruby (or any
software) from source, I suggest you use checkinstall so uninstalling or
upgrading will be easier.

I was wondering if that mightn't have been what was going on, but I'm
not at all familiar with using Ruby. I'm really only motivated to
install it because I'm installing amaroK. But you're absolutely
correct!

This leaves me with the question: is it installed sufficiently well to
work for that purpose? I'm not really keen on leaving partially
crippled apps on my machine, but if it's okay for now, it's okay. I'll
give it a shot.

And thanks for the checkinstall pointer. I'm looking into it.
Especially for folks newer to Linux, understanding where things are and
how to clean an unused software off, or upgrade it effectively, is a
little daunting. Luckily, it's not the Windows registry.

Daniel

 

[Lei Ming]

This leaves me with the question: is it installed sufficiently well to
work for that purpose? I'm not really keen on leaving partially
crippled apps on my machine, but if it's okay for now, it's okay. I'll
give it a shot.

I checked Amarok's documentation. Ruby scripts simply use the command
line dcop interface to communicate with Amarok, so a basic Ruby
installation should be sufficiently enough.

Daniel

Be a happy slacker

Lei Ming