Installing Webby on Ubuntu

Question

I'm trying to install webby on Ubuntu ubuntu-8.10.

So far I have installed Ruby 1.8, and RedCloth for Ruby 1.8.

When I tried to install webby (using gem) I received the error:

Error installing webby:
webby requires hpricot (= 0.6.0, runtime)

So naturally I tried to install hpricot:

sudo gem install hpricot --version=0.6.0

But then I get yet another error:

   leeand00@U101:~/haml$ sudo gem install hpricot --version=0.6.0
   Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
   ERROR:  Error installing hpricot:
   ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

   /usr/bin/ruby1.8 extconf.rb install hpricot --version=0.6.0
   extconf.rb:1:in `require': no such file to load -- mkmf (LoadError)
   from extconf.rb:1


    Gem files will remain installed in /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/hpricot-0.6 for 
    inspection.

    Results logged to /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/hpricot-0.6/ext/hpricot_scan/gem_make.out

So I went and looked at the file in /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/hpricot-0.6/ext/hpricot_scan/gem_make.out

and it read:

     /usr/bin/ruby1.8 extconf.rb install hpricot --version=0.6.0
     extconf.rb:1:in `require': no such file to load -- mkmf (LoadError)
     from extconf.rb:1

This is the first ruby project I've ever messed-around with so I'm not entirely sure how to interpret this error. So what is it I need to do to install this hpricot 0.6.0 library? And get Webby to work?

Answer 1

apt-get install ruby1.8-dev

Answer 2

In case @guerda is curious, mkmf is Ruby's Makefile maker. It's needed when you're installing a library with native (read: written in C) components.

Ubuntu (and indeed, all Debian-derived distros) strip out mkmf (and other dev tools) from the main ruby package. Installing ruby1.8-dev should make things better :).