Ruby On Rails Development Machine [closed]

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I'm starting with Ruby-On-Rails development on Linux machine. I want to know which Linux distribution will be best suited to do ROR development.

Also what will be the best (free) IDE for ROR on Linux.

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Any distribution is good distribution. However, if you don't have previous experience with Linux, I'd recommend some on the more user-friendly side, such as Ubuntu or Linux Mint.

As for IDE, I am a happy user of NetBeans for development on both Linux and Mac.

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No Linux distribution is really "best suited" for ROR development. As long as you have the relevant packages (ruby, for example), you're probably fine. One piece of advice: don't use your OS's package manager to manage/install gems -- use gem for that instead.

As for an IDE, your might like RubyMine from IDEA.

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I've developed Rails on Ubuntu linux quite a bit. The package management in Ubuntu is excellent, and found it nothing but helpful when installing dependencies (Sphinx, ImageMagick, etc).

As for an IDE, I like TextMate so much, I went searching for a linux equivalent. I found gmate, a package to make gEdit behave as much like TextMate as possible.

Check it out: http://github.com/lexrupy/gmate

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As IDE, try Aptana (http://www.radrails.org/), it's a good enviroment, too

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Any Linux distribution is as good as any other for Ruby development.

In my opinion, you don't need an IDE for Ruby on Rails as much as other languages. Rails scripts handle most IDE functions (script/generate - building scaffolding/templates, script/server - starting the server, script/console - for debugging/testing) - and a programmer's editor (to do syntax highlighting etc.) should handle the rest.

(I do like RubyMine (mentioned by @John Feminella above) - but it isn't free...)

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I like developing Rails in Ubuntu 9.10 using the Netbeans Rails plugin or just straight Vim. I use this setup because it "Just Works".

That said, there is no reason you can't develop Rails under Mac OSX or Windows just as well. If you're more comfortable with one of those, use what you have. Installing a new Operating System just do do Rails development is Yak Shaving.

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http://www.turnkeylinux.org/rails
Otherwise, Netbeans is a good and free IDE. A lot of people will swear by vim if they don't use Textmate. And I recommend Jetbrain's Rubymine as well. It's not free but it's very good.

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As much as I love Ubuntu (it's been ticking me off lately, though) I would actually vote AGAINST it for doing Rails development, mainly because the available packages in the Ubuntu universe are outdated -- Ubuntu is still using Rails2 and Ruby 1.8.7, and a pathetically old version of rubygems.

If you want to use Rails 3, like any sensible Rails programmer would, you will need to first override the ruby meta-package with the one that's specific to ruby 1.9.x (search Synaptic, it's in there). You'll then need to download the latest Rubygems from their archive on rubyforge, install it manually, and then install Rails 3 via Gem install. If you want to use mod_passenger, you'll have to do THAT manually too, as Ubuntu will try to force you into re-loading all of the ruby metapackages you just removed (I am going through this right now.)

I don't know what the preferable distro is. And perhaps in Ubuntu 12.04 (an LTS version), they will get with the program and make Rails 3 / ruby 1.9.x standard -- but until then, use it at your own peril. :/