From Zero to Rails Hero in 11 Easy Steps (Installing Rails on OS X 10.6.5)

This is the easiest, fastest and best-to-develop-in way to get a rails dev stack up and running on OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard).

I actually find that it’s pretty easy, if everything is done in the right order.

1. Install XCode
2. Install Homebrew

   $ ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://gist.github.com/raw/323731/install_homebrew.rb)"

3. Install git using homebrew

   $ brew install git

4. Install mysql using homebrew

   $ brew install mysql

5. Install rvm (and follow the instructions to set up bash and don’t forget to open a new terminal window)

   $ bash < <( curl http://rvm.beginrescueend.com/releases/rvm-install-head )

6. Install Ruby Enterprise Edition

   $ rvm install ree

7. Make REE the default Ruby

   $ rvm use ree --default

8. Tell rubygems to not install rdocs
   Put the following lines in ~/.gemrc

   install: --no-rdoc --no-ri
   update: --no-rdoc --no-ri

9. Install Passenger

   $ gem install passenger

   Now follow that up by running the install script (and follow the directions)

   $ ./passenger-install-apache2-module

   At the end of the install process it will give you instructions to add 3 lines to the “Apache configuration file”, but it won’t tell you *where* your apache config file is. It’s at /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

10. Restart Apache
    At this point, if you’re using 10.6.5, you might do a sudo /etc/apachectl restart and run into the following error:
    /usr/sbin/apachectl: line 82: ulimit: open files: cannot modify limit: Invalid argumentTo fix this, edit /usr/sbin/apachectl and change ULIMIT_MAX_FILES to an empty string.

    Now you can restart apache.

11. Install PassengerPane 1.3 www.fngtps.com/files/2/2009/09/PassengerPane-1.3.tgz

BOOM! Done.

Well, for me, I had to `gem install isolate` and Rubymine and then I was done, but you get the idea. Just load up the Passenger Preference Pane, point at site at a rails project on your hard drive, and load it up in your browser. Assuming your rails app will boot, you should be good to go!