Is Vagrant a good solutions for creating a Rails environment in windows?
I have a powerful Windows 8 64bit desktop. I recently did a project with RoR and fell in love with it. As I found out, installing RoR on windows is just bleh; so I created a dual boot to ubuntu. As a creative developer, I find it rather difficult to get any of the "creative" done in ubuntu because of the lack of my typical creative tools.
I read a bit about a tool called Vagrant; however, I'm still unsure if it meets my requirements: adobe suite, sublime text, git, rails, rails friendly OS(mac?/ubuntu)
Typical duties: edit an image in photoshop(windows), drop it to project assets in VM?
Typical duties: push/pull to git; ssh to VPS server?
Also, I hear you can install mac os in the VM do you think thats a good option? (because I want to try their new OS)
Installing osx in Vagrant is probably possible but it would likely be quite hard, and its not really what vagrant is designed for.
As for your other questions vagrant sounds like the perfect fit.
With Vagrant you could start up an ubuntu vm and get your rails setup going. Then you could just forward a port on your local machine to the vm and load the rails site as if it were running locally on your windows PC. A quick google gets this vagrant box that looks like it might work for you - https://github.com/amaia/rails-starter-box
To work with the site you can just share a folder between the vm and your local machine which will allow you to edit images and code with your windows apps (Photoshop, sublime) so you don't actually need to install these in the ubuntu vm at all, and can pretty much work as normal.
Git is much the same... I prefer to SSH into the vagrant box and use git on the command line in ubuntu but you can just as easily use gitbash or tortoisegit from windows in the repo folder... works just as well.
A good alternative is, https://github.com/fgrehm/ventriloquist
"Ventriloquist combines Vagrant and Docker to give developers the ability to configure portable and disposable development VMs with ease. It lowers the entry barrier of building a sane working environment without the need to learn tools like Puppet or Chef."
Related
From the beginning, I am a Windows master. I started with MS-DOS. I put up Windows 2.1 and every Windows since. I have 10 different Windows boxes running in my house right now, from Windows 7 Ultimate to varied flavors of Windows Servers. I haven't done Windows 8 and don't want to go there.
I have UNIX experience with both servers and varied software, but it hasn't been my preferred environment. However, I guess I am converting. I've tried to pretend to run UNIX under Windows using Cygwin and MSYS. My purpose is to build a development environment. Both have failed me. I have spent more time trying to fix a series of technical issues than I have developing. That is unacceptable.
My Ruby on Rails development environment is by far my highest current priority. I have websites to build, right now.
At this point, I have two options. One is to find a UNIX development environment in a cloud. The other is to convert one of my many machines to a true UNIX system. So, I need advice. I don't really want to build and babysit a system. The idea of a cloud-based development environment is very interesting, with the caveat that I don't chase it down another rat hole like I have with Cygwin and MSYS.
Here are the questions. Is there a solid cloud-based Ruby on Rails friendly development environment out there? Failing that, should I put up an Ubuntu-based system. If I go there, do I convert a workstation or a server?
Thanks...
I highly recommend Vagrant. I use this to do development on my Windows systems.
As you found out, Windows is terrible for RoR development. Your best option would be to use a VM like VirtualBox to run a Linux/Unix instance. There are other VM options, but VirtualBox is free.
Failing that, just convert once of your boxes to Linux/Unix. For development it does not matter one bit if it is a workstation or a server.
Mac OSX
The unofficial standard for RoR production is Linux, but for development it is Mac OSX. There has been a big migration of developers to the Apple platform that has been going on for many years now.
It gives you the best of both worlds: it is Unix underneath but it's also a commercial platform, a polished UI, and an available software ecosystem.
Yes, it's expensive, but people should ask themselves, why are people willing to pay so much? If you can afford 10 boxes for Windows, how about finding $ for one Mac? Then, you will have not just a workable RoR environment, but the best.
Or go VM
But if you don't take that advice, you may want to install a Hypervisor like Xen or XenServer for free, and then you can run both Windows and Linux on the same machine. This is slightly different than running a VM under Windows.
Externally, I have received a recommendation for EngineYard.com as an outstanding RoR environment and will ultimately consider it as my primary development/migration/production environment.
I have a working Debian system now and am building it out as a local RoR environment. It just seems to be right for a serious RoR development environment. I will go there as soon as it is fully built out because RoR is just meant for UNIX.
However, at least temporarily, I have found that RubyStack is a seriously usable Windows RoR development environment. It is 100% usable as a standalone system that doesn't require UNIX-style environments shoehorned onto Windows. Trying to run UNIX on Windows was a constant source of frustration, so this meets my immediate needs.
I am studying ruby on rails, but I am stopped in the chapter of deploying with capistrano,
I would like to know if I can do practice with capistrano on only my pc with windows 7?
I dont know well what is deploying, seems to be things about to use multiple servers on diferent places, so, can I practice on only a pc?(my pc with windows 7)
I would like if you have any tutorial or idea about this?
You can get micro instance on amazon for free for 1 year, and then you can practice not with only deploying, but also testing your applications in productions environment.
Also you can install other system into virtualpc(or similar) make proper routing to inside, and then after you configure environment, you could try to deploy. However that will not be easy
Is only my pc with windows 7 going to be valid if you have a Linux on a virtual machine?
If yes - You can set up Virtual machine with Vagrant described in Virtual Machines with Vagrant railscast. Install one of many operating systems available and start deploying to your new "virtual server" with capistrano.
I'm looking to run Redmine, a Ruby on Rails app, on a VPS windows box. The only thing I can really think of is running a virtual Linux machine and hosting it from there. If that is my only option, am I going to run into problems running a virtual machine inside of a virtual machine?
Also, this will be an internal app, so performance isn't my number once concern.
Windows is not the usual place to deploy production Rails apps, but there are people who do it. Mongrel was originally written to give better deployment options for Windows. As it turned out the UNIX deployment options weren't that good either. :)
Start with the Ruby One Click installer so you have a sane installation of ruby and rubygems.
From there, you install the rails gem and the gem for your database like you normally would. Most if not all of the databases have Windows gems.
Make sure to install mongrel_service to be able to control each mongrel like a normal windows service. See mongrel_rails service::install -h for details.
Once you have your mongrels set up, it's similar to a UNIX deployment. You set up a reverse proxy, such as Apache2 and you're set.
You might run into some gems (such as BackgroundRB) that will not work under Windows because they have C code that either rely on UNIX libraries or expect a UNIX-like build system at installation time. However, all of the really important Rails gems, such as Mongrel and the database adapters, have gems with pre-built binaries available, so you'll be fine.
Just grab the Bitnami RedMine stack.
Or the Bitnami Ruby on Rails stack.
Redmine ran fine on our Windows build server from the command line, sans IDE, using Mongrel and SQLite. Granted, ours isn't a VPS, but at any rate Linux isn't required for this app.
The BitNami Redmine Stack is a free, up to date Windows installer package for Redmine on Windows, Linux, OS X... give it a try. You can also download a VMWare Virtual Machine as well
I had good luck in the past with InstantRails, but I'm not sure how up-to-date it is now, as the project has changed hands several times.
You might also try ruby stack or flash rails, though I've not used either personally.
You can install SQLite and a Rails server like Mongrel on a Windows machine. I used Aptana to run a development environment, but I'm sure that there are better alternatives that don't require the IDE to be open to run. But this proves it is possible.
Try using a Rails distribution like: http://instantrails.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl
One download install for rails+ruby+mysql on Windows.
Everytime I run any rails command on my windows vista dev box there is always something like a 30 second delay before the command does anything. I don't have the firewall enabled and the virus protection is disabled. Any thoughts on what could be causing this?
Thanks
I can't comment on this specific issue, but I can say I had nothing but problems trying to run Rails on Windows in the past. That said, after trying Ubuntu and MacOs, I still prefer to use Windows as my primary UI. My solution is to run Ubuntu Server on a VM, and use a Samba file share to access dev files, with putty as my primary console interface. The linux command line is far more powerful, and is where the Rails ecosystem is really geared to be running.
VirtualBox: http://virtualbox.com
Ubuntu: http://ubuntu.com
Samba: http://www.samba.org/
Putty: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
With these tools, you can run your Rails stack in a nice linux server environment, and still enjoy the utility and functionality of the Windows GUI. (Although I'd recommend you move from Vista to 7)
I'm looking to run Redmine, a Ruby on Rails app, on a VPS windows box. The only thing I can really think of is running a virtual Linux machine and hosting it from there. If that is my only option, am I going to run into problems running a virtual machine inside of a virtual machine?
Also, this will be an internal app, so performance isn't my number once concern.
Windows is not the usual place to deploy production Rails apps, but there are people who do it. Mongrel was originally written to give better deployment options for Windows. As it turned out the UNIX deployment options weren't that good either. :)
Start with the Ruby One Click installer so you have a sane installation of ruby and rubygems.
From there, you install the rails gem and the gem for your database like you normally would. Most if not all of the databases have Windows gems.
Make sure to install mongrel_service to be able to control each mongrel like a normal windows service. See mongrel_rails service::install -h for details.
Once you have your mongrels set up, it's similar to a UNIX deployment. You set up a reverse proxy, such as Apache2 and you're set.
You might run into some gems (such as BackgroundRB) that will not work under Windows because they have C code that either rely on UNIX libraries or expect a UNIX-like build system at installation time. However, all of the really important Rails gems, such as Mongrel and the database adapters, have gems with pre-built binaries available, so you'll be fine.
Just grab the Bitnami RedMine stack.
Or the Bitnami Ruby on Rails stack.
Redmine ran fine on our Windows build server from the command line, sans IDE, using Mongrel and SQLite. Granted, ours isn't a VPS, but at any rate Linux isn't required for this app.
The BitNami Redmine Stack is a free, up to date Windows installer package for Redmine on Windows, Linux, OS X... give it a try. You can also download a VMWare Virtual Machine as well
I had good luck in the past with InstantRails, but I'm not sure how up-to-date it is now, as the project has changed hands several times.
You might also try ruby stack or flash rails, though I've not used either personally.
You can install SQLite and a Rails server like Mongrel on a Windows machine. I used Aptana to run a development environment, but I'm sure that there are better alternatives that don't require the IDE to be open to run. But this proves it is possible.
Try using a Rails distribution like: http://instantrails.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl
One download install for rails+ruby+mysql on Windows.