Rails On Debian
----------------

To get started with your own Rails application
----------------------------------------------

NOTE: DEST_DIR == destination directory (you choose!)


1. Install rails into a working directry by running `rails DEST_DIR`.
2. Run the WEBrick servlet from DEST_DIR: script/server (run with --help for
   options)
3. Go to http://localhost:3000/ and get "Congratulations, you've put Ruby on
   Rails!"
4. Follow the guidelines on the "Congratulations, you've put Ruby on Rails!"
   screen

Complete API reference is also available (if you deploy ruby with
documentation) in DEST_DIR/doc/api/index.html and well as at
 http://www.rubyonrails.com. 


To run a non-packaged Rails application
---------------------------------------

Debian puts all Ruby and Rails libraries into Debian Packages. Theses get
installed at FHS compliant locations.

In the case of Rails libraries under:

  /usr/share/rails/

In the case of Ruby libraries under:

  /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/
  /usr/lib/ruby/1.9/

Non-packaged Rails applications normaly use `gem` to dynamically load the
classes and modules they need. However `gem` does not know about the
libraries provided by Debian and thus starting the application will fail
with a message like the following:

  $ ./script/server
  Missing the Rails 2.0.2 gem. Please `gem install -v=2.0.2 rails`, update
  your RAILS_GEM_VERSION setting in config/environment.rb for the Rails
  version you do have installed, or comment out RAILS_GEM_VERSION to use the
  latest version installed.

The solution that Debian uses when its `rails` tool wrapper is used to create
a new rails application is to add references to Debian's packaged libraries
to the created Rails application. Thus:

  $ rails my_project

will create this:

  $ ls -l my_project/vendor
  lrwxrwxrwx 1 joe joe 29 2008-09-16 20:50 actionmailer -> /usr/share/rails/actionmailer
  lrwxrwxrwx 1 joe joe 27 2008-09-16 20:50 actionpack -> /usr/share/rails/actionpack
  lrwxrwxrwx 1 joe joe 28 2008-09-16 20:50 active_ldap -> /usr/share/rails/active_ldap
  lrwxrwxrwx 1 joe joe 28 2008-09-16 20:50 activemodel -> /usr/share/rails/activemodel
  lrwxrwxrwx 1 joe joe 29 2008-09-16 20:50 activerecord -> /usr/share/rails/activerecord
  lrwxrwxrwx 1 joe joe 31 2008-09-16 20:50 activeresource -> /usr/share/rails/activeresource
  lrwxrwxrwx 1 joe joe 30 2008-09-16 20:50 activesupport -> /usr/share/rails/activesupport
  lrwxrwxrwx 1 joe joe 16 2008-09-16 20:50 rails -> /usr/share/rails
  lrwxrwxrwx 1 joe joe 25 2008-09-16 20:50 railties -> /usr/share/rails/railties

You can use the command rails-app-debianize to create those links.


 -- Adam Majer <adamm@zombino.com>, Fri,  7 Mar 2005
 -- Tomas Pospisek <tpo_deb@sourcepole.ch>, Thu, 16 Sep 2008