Re: Ubuntu vs Ruby

(original post)

> If Ubuntu 12.04 if a LTS release, and Ruby 1.8.7 goes out of support in June of
> 2013, then why is the default still 1.8.7?
>
> Ruby 1.9.2 was released in 2010. Ruby 1.9.3 was released in October of this year.

First, there’s almost nobody in the Ubuntu development community doing any Ruby work. Packages are just imported from Debian, and Ubuntu follows what is done on the Debian side.

In the Debian/Ruby team, we are currently transitioning to a new packaging helper (gem2deb) that makes it much
easier to support several Ruby versions. Once this will be done, switching to 1.9.3 by default will be very easy. We already provide a way for the sysadmin to change the default on a system.

Now, doing that transition takes time, and we could have used *your* help (and could still use it). We are still quite on time to do it for Debian wheezy, but it sounds very hard to do it for Ubuntu 12.04 unless someone from Ubuntu steps
up to help.

19 thoughts on “Re: Ubuntu vs Ruby

  1. I just wanted to add a “thanks” to pkg-ruby(-extras) for their wonderful work on Ruby!

    Thanks.

  2. I second what was said above…how can I help? I’ve never done any packaging work, but I rely on Ruby (and Rails, but I get that via RVM) on Ubuntu, so I’m more than willing to learn, and give back to the distro.

  3. I guess you all can help by try the packages from testing/sid and update and/or write help information for others to read on how to set up a propper Ruby/Rails Debian develop system and a live Debian system.

    Debian packages works great, if you bother to read up on how to install and use it propperly. Don’t fight the system. Debian package maker has done a good work for you.

    (You could fight, but then you loose some of the benefits of using Debian).

  4. I have some packaging knowledges, I’m a Ruby on Rails developer and I use Ubuntu (not for Rails at it is less usable than OSX) so I would like to help !

    If an Ubuntu Ruby packaging team is created, do not hesitate to contact me if you need help!

  5. Lucas: it is not clear (to me) how I can help on those tasks. I also question the assertion that “1.9 doesn’t sound like a reasonable target now, even if it is likely to become one during the wheezy cycle.” Can anybody explain why that might be? I would agree if we were talking about 1.9.1, but 1.9.2 onwards is a reasonable target, especially as 1.8.7 is going to go unsupported as I mention in my blog post. Additionally, Rails 4.0 should be released later this year, and will drop support for 1.8.7.

    For context, I’m a co-author of a book on Rails. In the chapter on installation, I currently recommend rvm for Linux machines.

  6. @Sam Ruby:
    I personally wouldn’t want to be recommended to use RVM – distro alternatives and/or maybe rbenv for per-user alternatives and/or bundler does everything I need more cleanly.

  7. I’ve updated the wiki page, which was quite outdated.

    For 1.9 as default, we mainly need a discussion on the list (debian-ruby@lists.debian.org). I’ve added to my TODO list to start it. Subscribe if you want to contribute.

    @zedtux: why do you insist on the team being an Ubuntu team, when all the work needs to be done in Debian anyway?

  8. (the wiki page now lists more ways to help. please ask questions if some of them are unclear)

  9. Alright. Do like you want. It was just a simple question waiting a simple answer! I have no idea of what Debian team have done or not. Just was asking…

  10. OK, fair enough — but I don’t see that the lack of a 1.9 compatible mmap wrapper should be a showstopper for shipping a working 1.9.3 for Debian. It can always be added later when someone’s worked out how to get it working, right?

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