On Nov 18, 9:45 pm, Jay Levitt <jay+n... / jay.fm> wrote:
> I figured I'd try running the tests that Ron Jeffries is running, to see
> what happens on my Windows XP machine.
>
> I realized that I haven't actually used my win32 install in a while; it was
> still on 1.8.4 and rubygems couldn't even self-update from 0.9.0.  So I
> just blew it away and redownloaded.
>
> I've made a huge mistake.
>
> Problem #1: There are (or were?) a lot of mirrors for Ruby downloads, but
> they seem to be gone as of the (otherwise really pretty) ruby-lang.org
> redesign.  So I had to downloaded it from the main site - and, judging by
> the download speed, that hurt the site even more.
>

Yes, the one-point of code download is problematic. you can also
download the win32 builds from GarbageCollect [1].

> Problem #2: I remembered reading here that the one-click installer was
> outdated, so I figured I'd just download the base install and build it up
> myself.
>

Not true, you should have done a google search before:

One-Click installer, 1.8.6-26 Release Candidate 2 (2007-10-29) -- not
so old:

http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=167


> (I've made a huge mistake.)
>
> Problem #3: Rubygems needs zlib.  Ruby-lang.org used to have that for
> download, but it's not there anymore.  Downloaded it from zlib.net, but
> there's no zlib.dll in there; just zlibwapi.dll now.  I couldn't find any
> mention of that on Google, but I did find people saying they had downloaded
> the old DLL and put it in c:\ruby\bin (not lib!), so after some error and
> error, I renamed zlibwapi.dll to zlib.dll, and put it in c:\ruby\bin.
>

You should have to search better for this: ruby-mswin32 will bring you
better search results. also checking the source code for One-Click
ruby installer will be a good start, since it downloads the files
needed to build itself.

> Problem #4: ruby setup.rb now gets past zlib, but crashes with a segfault!
> It's at this point that I realize that the Ruby Windows binary on
> rubylang-org is also out of date; it doesn't list the patchlevel, but it's
> dated 2007-03-13, which I think was the initial 1.8.6 release.  OK, so
> maybe there's a bug that the current zlib or gems hits.
>
> So, bunch more Googling, no mentions on comp.lang.ruby, but I eventually
> stumble acrosswww.garbagecollect.jp/ruby, which has mswin32 builds
> available.  More slow download across transatlantic links, more unzipping,
> and:
>
> Problem #5: same crash.
>
> Back to the zlib page.  Ah hah... I had searched the page for "Windows",
> but the version of the DLL I apparently want is NOT the one called "zlib
> for Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP/2003 (DLL version, plus related utilities)".
> It's "zlib compiled DLL, version 1.2.3, zipfile format".  I see my error.
>
> I replace the zlibwapi.dll-named-zlib.dll with zlib1.dll-named-zlib.dll,
> and now, all is well.
>
> So... since Ruby's a community effort, what can I do to help solve problems
> 1-5, other than posting this for Google to index?
>

One-Click installer maybe? or maybe you can do it yourself with mingw?
Anyway the problems you list require you some compilation, since ruby-
zlib extension that fix the whole zlib problems need a compiler.

We all know the state of Ruby on Windows is problematic, and I hope we
can all contribute to fix it.  Please try One-Click installer and let
us know if you need anything :-)

[1] http://www.garbagecollect.jp/ruby/mswin32/en/

Luis Lavena