Max Williams wrote:

> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/i486-linux/ruby.h:40:21: error: stdlib.h: No such file 
> or directory

I would guess you need libglib2.0-dev...

...but the bigger topic here, with one-terabyte notebook hard drives these days, 
is could the GNU packagers relax and start pushing things together into bigger 
and more useful components? Instead of nickel-and-diming us to death with tiny 
and individually useless ~80 kB packages?