problem installing rails ....missing ruby.h

[dec1]

I have a problem installing a custom version of rails. Im using opensuse 13.2 (which has a system ruby 2.1 already installed) I installed “ruby-install” and “chruby” so that I could install and manage custom ruby/rails versions without affecting the system ones. Installing ruby 2.2.3 itself seemed to work fine. However when I try to install rails via gem, I get an error. Somehow the installation seems to be looking for files belonging to the system (2.1) ruby instead of the (active) 2.2.3.

    declan@linux-p8rr:~> chruby system
    declan@linux-p8rr:~> ruby --version
    ruby 2.1.3p242 (2014-09-19 revision 47630) [x86_64-linux-gnu]
    declan@linux-p8rr:~> 
    declan@linux-p8rr:~> 
    declan@linux-p8rr:~> chruby 2.2.3
    declan@linux-p8rr:~> ruby --version
    ruby 2.2.3p173 (2015-08-18 revision 51636) [x86_64-linux]
    declan@linux-p8rr:~> 
    declan@linux-p8rr:~> 
    declan@linux-p8rr:~> gem install rubygems-update
    Successfully installed rubygems-update-2.4.8
    Parsing documentation for rubygems-update-2.4.8
    Done installing documentation for rubygems-update after 0 seconds
    1 gem installed
    declan@linux-p8rr:~> 
    declan@linux-p8rr:~> sudo gem install rails
    Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
    ERROR:  Error installing rails:
            ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

        /usr/bin/ruby.ruby2.1 extconf.rb
    mkmf.rb can't find header files for ruby at /usr/lib64/ruby/include/ruby.h

I can install “ruby-devel” via yast (my system package manager) but it shows version 2.1

I don’t feel too comfortable with this since it corresponds to my system ruby version and not the custom one I installed (2.2.3)

If I nonetheless do so I can then install “nokogiri” manually (Workaround for problem with libxml libraries .. see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/29782968/how-to-gem-install-nokogiri-use-system-libraries-via-gemfile http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24251494/nokogiri-gem-installation-error)

> sudo gem install nokogiri -- --use-system-libraries

Then finish rails installation

declan@linux-p8rr:~> sudo gem install rails
Successfully installed rails-4.2.4

Seems to have worked but, I cant seem to find rails then…

declan@linux-p8rr:~> gem list 

*** LOCAL GEMS ***

bigdecimal (1.2.6)
io-console (0.4.3)
json (1.8.1)
minitest (5.4.3)
power_assert (0.2.2)
psych (2.0.8)
rake (10.4.2)
rdoc (4.2.0)
rubygems-update (2.4.8)
test-unit (3.0.8)

Maybe I have to build ruby from source (should have the correct version of the headers then) and then tell “chruby” about it?

Any other ideas?

Any suggestions? Thanks in Advance. Declan

[dec1]

P.S If I do the same with rvm instead of ruby-install & chruby rails is available afterwards .. ie seems to have been correctly installed

[dec1]

Seems to work fine if I do the following:

(1) Build ruby from source (2) tell chruby about my custom ruby Note: its not very elegant to have to edit the chruby.sh file for this (RUBIES=() otherwise overwrites any env vars instead of adding to them! .. possible improvement?) (3) Manually install nokogiri using sys libs (wont work otherwise)

gem install nokogiri -- --use-system-libraries 

(4) chruby 2.2.3

(5)gem install ruby

things seem to work fine. rails gets built without errors and is available on the command line

rails  --version

Rails 4.2.4

So maybe theres something that needs to be improved in ruby-install instead?

[postmodern]

sudo does not inherit your current environment (specifically $PATH) for security reasons. Please try gem install rails without sudo.

[danogwok]

make sure you have

ruby-devel

installed.

[ellcs]

In case someone struggles with OpenSuse:

# ruby 2.1.x
zypper in gcc make ruby2.1-devel ruby2.1-devel-extra
# or ruby 2.2.x
zypper in gcc make ruby2.2-devel ruby2.2-devel-extra