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A Simple Guide to Installing RMagick for Ruby on Rails on Mac OS X

macournoyer.wordpress.com — Installing RMagick for Ruby on Rails isn't trivial, especially since the instructions and online tutorials are wrong. Here's a simple guide to fixing that, making the process dead simple.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jun 20, 2007

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  • rogersmj, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4It says it right in the title: it's RMagick for Ruby on Rails. If you don't know what Ruby on Rails is, then this obviously doesn't apply to you.
  • rogersmj, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Here's a simple guide:

    1. Download Locomotive with the RMagick for Rails bundle (http://locomotive.raaum.org/).
    2. Done.
  • File13, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4am i the only mac user who had no idea what the hell this was?
  • treed, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3***** hell. I'm glad I'm not the only person who had difficulty getting RMagick working on OS X.
  • Eleo, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2"RMagick is an interface between the Ruby programming language and the ImageMagick® and GraphicsMagick image processing libraries." It's used to manipulate images in Ruby.

    I personally prefer not to use it. It seems to consume massive amounts of RAM and you can, with more work, access ImageMagick directly from your Ruby application. It's a better way to go about things if all you need to do is make thumbnails or watermark a series of images since it uses way less resources.
  • dfg59, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Really simple guide to installing ruby and rmagick on osx:

    1. Download Macports
    2. sudo port install ruby
    3. sudo gem update --system
    4. sudo port install ghostscript
    5. sudo port install ImageMagick
    6. sudo gem install rmagick
  • ThatsUnpossible, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3Submitter, it helps if your description defines strange terms, like "RMagick."
  • inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Similiar for PHP: http://us2.php.net/manual/en/ref.imagick.php
  • inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I'm guessing that RMagick is ImageMagick for RoR?
  • treed, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1macports died on me. It didn't install the software correctly, but left bits and pieces installed while claiming that it was not installed. These bits and pieces, of course, prevented it from allowing reinstall.
  • greenisus, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1That's certainly an easy way to do it, but I personally like to do everything on the command line and install in /usr/local
  • greenisus, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1RMagick is a Ruby-based wrapper around ImageMagick. So, you install ImageMagick first, and then install RMagick to use ImageMagick functionality in Ruby code.
  • gregdigg, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2I read the article, and I still have no idea. Sounds magickal, though.
  • Homunculiheaded, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I think it's pretty fair to say that Open source IS mainstream. Just not in the desktop environment, but about 1/2 of the stuff you do on the web is running on a completely open source system (LAMP setups for example). I see a lot of comments like this which are completely off base, walk into the computer section of any book store at least half of the serious technical literature is dealing with Open Source products, look at job postings (especially in academic or non-profit areas) and you'll see MySql just as much as Oracle or SQL server. Go to a high-tech R&D company and find out how much of their serious development is done on a Windows platform compared to Linux (especially for anything dealing with creating very custom hardware).

    Open Source is mainstream, just not on the desktop, but it's getting there.
  • dfg59, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Just wanted to point out that this *does not work*. You need specific dependencies that are not installed by simply doing an install of imagemagick through macports. When you attempt to install the rmagick gem it will fail during compiling.
  • fredngo, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Yup, we struggled for a while on this...
  • macournoyer, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1hope this is useful to anyone else
  • locnguyen, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1No QA and bad documentation will doom any project that wants to go mainstream whether it's closed or open source.
  • arachn1d, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1An even easier way... http://www.danielfischer.com/2007/06/20/an-even-easier-way-to-install-rmagick-for-ruby-on-rails-development/
  • johnlande360, on 03/17/2008, -1/+0Here's a simple guide:
    Download the latest freeware, shareware and demo software arranged by categories, including screenshots, descriptions, ratings, reviews and direct download links.
    Free Software Downloads: http://www.freedownloads32.com
  • alucard963, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1This exemplifies the single largest roadblock to open-source going mainstream: when there is absolutely zero quality control, you lose customers fast.
  • altjeringa, on 10/11/2007, -3/+1They forgot the last step, Install 4GB of RAM in your computer.

    I can't believe people people use RMagick or still use ImageMagic at all. It is the least efficient method of image processing available next to Apple Scripting Photoshop to do your image processing. Much easier and efficient in terms of both memory and CPU to just write a few lines of JAVA or Python which have real Image processing capabilities. But then most RoR programmers aren't actually programmers. Kinda like PHP a few years ago.
  • edithsan, on 10/11/2007, -6/+0Digg this!

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