Rubuntu is (almost) born!

Posted by ezmobius Thu, 16 Feb 2006 22:58:00 GMT


So I am working on a custom linux liveCD for all rubyists. This is basically an Ubuntu liveCD that has been pimped out for rails/ruby developers.

This is a call to arms for all of you out there. Send me your weak huddled masses of vimrc's and jedit configs yearning to be free(as in beer). Here is a list of some of what is planned so far: 

ruby1.8.4
gems
rails
switchtower
mysql/ruby bindings
postgresql/ruby bindings
sqlite/ruby bindings
kirbybase/ackbar
imagemagick/rmagick
apache/fcgi/scgi
lighttpd/fcgi
mongrel
subversion
svk?
darcs?
trac
phpmyadmin(I know I know but its useful, will run on lighty on an obscure port)
vim/setup slick(can use help with this, please send configs and suggestions)
emacs/setup slick(can use help with this, please send configs and suggestions)
jedit/setup slick(can use help with this, please send configs and suggestions)
kate/kdevelop/setup slick(can use help with this, please send configs and suggestions)
gedit, scite, freeride?
RadRails
daemontools
daedalus
offline ruby and rails docs
other random good stuff

OK, lets hear your thoughts. Leave suggestions in the comments about what you would like to see included. And please send me any configs for text editors that are ruby specific or too cool not to include.

And a religious question ;-) What desktop environment. I will include a few lightweight ones for folks who prefer them but only one out of KDE or Gnome is going to make it in. What's it going to be folks?

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  1. Phil said 28 minutes later:
    GnOOOOOOOOme! If you use GNOME, you can use this nifty little sucker: http://raphael.slinckx.net/deskbar/ I'm working on writing an rdoc plugin for it so you can always have documentation no less than two keystrokes away. It's not anywhere near finished, though. (I have to write it in python.... icky!) You should probably include a fluxbox or icewm option for those without much RAM though. I'd suggest Epiphany as the default browser, but would understand if you choose Firefox. Nice logo!
  2. topfunky said about 1 hour later:
    Awesome! I was just talking to someone about how cool such a CD would be. Put me on the beta tester list!
  3. null said about 2 hours later:
    your cd project is invaluable when i do ruby/rails evangelization at different locations. so i recommend: 1 tryruby.localhost #yes, i need this for quick presentation in a group without ruby on their pc 2 gtk+wxwidgets+wxruby+tcl # need this since a lot of the questions that popup from an audience is a gui desktop example.. thanks for rubuntu -botp #an ubuntu fan
  4. Packagethief said about 2 hours later:
    I'll give a shout out to gnome. Rails and gnome go well together, like shreddies and honey. I've written about some of my ubuntu experiences on my blog, and there's even a .vimrc there somewhere for anyone who's interested.
  5. null said about 2 hours later:
    Btw, pls also include in advance some gems i always need (again, this is for cases where the location do not have internet connection). gems: 1 pdfwriter 2 extensions 3 facets 4 rrobots or maybe, you can already include the most common gems in advance in your cd. this way, i will then make the rubuntu cd as the gem repository where everyaudience can download from.. again thanks for rubuntu. kind regards -botp
  6. manveru said about 3 hours later:
    well, now it's only me who votes for kde :| however, that cd will be really nice to have. Also the idea with a rubygems-repo on the cd is a good one. maybe with a litte script that can check if there's a newer version on a mirror (and if there's internet at all) and then instead pull it from there... gems tend to outdate faster than japanese hardware :)
  7. Ezra said about 3 hours later:
    I am leaning towards gnome here. I think that is what its going to be. I will also include fluxbox and a few other light desktops, maybe even xfce.

    But to get the ball rolling I am going to focus on the ruby stuff first. Then I can add all the other linux niceties people want. This way others can play with it first and then tell me what they want in it for creature comforts.

    If people just post them here, I will try to include the .gem files that people want to be avialabe without a net connection. I will install some of these directly and some of them will just be ready to install locally in .gem form. This way you can pick and choose without having hundreds of gems installed.

    On another note, I am going to throw up a wiki for rubuntu as well so I can collect all the requests into one place.
  8. Scott Becker said about 4 hours later:
    Damn, I want / could use this NOW! I hope you get 'er done soon!
  9. Eric Stewart said about 5 hours later:
    I'll throw some support in for KDE. I know you already have Kate listed, which is a big thing for me, but I'd surely vote for KDE over gnome. But I haven't had a chance to play much with Korundum or QtRuby, so I don't know if there's an integration advantage there over what the Gnome folks provide. I'll second the addition of svk, though that means including Perl as well. Svk has proven to be a useful addition tool for people working with subversion. Also I'll back up RadRails. I love it! As far as database tools, phpMyAdmin is ok, but how about Mysql-Admin and Mysql Query Browser?
  10. John Dell said about 5 hours later:
    another +1 for KDE. Also, PostgreSQL + pgadmin3, and Eclipse with these plugins: * Subclipse Update Site - http://subclipse.tigris.org/update * Ruby Eclipse Update Site - http://rubyeclipse.sf.net/updatesite * Quantum DB Update Site - http://quantum.sourceforge.net/update-site (requires GEF to be installed for perspective to show up) * AnyEdit Plugin (enables trim trailing space and converts tabs -> spaces) - http://andrei.gmxhome.de/anyedit/ *
  11. gogo said about 13 hours later:
    As John Dell already mentioned: PostgreSQL+pgadmin3 should be included.
  12. Florian Gross said about 15 hours later:
    Include as much documentation as you can in as many languages as you can. Also make sure to include useful default bookmarks in the browser. RAA search, RubyForge project search, a bookmark folder with all IRC channels on FreeNode etc. I can also give you two Ruby games that are in a relatively polished state. (See http://flgr.0x42.net/encaved/encaved.png and http://flgr.0x42.net/Infectoban.png) Contact me personally if you are interested.
  13. Tony said about 15 hours later:
    Please include DB2 bindings too. Thanks.
  14. gdprasad@gmail.com said about 17 hours later:
    I suggest the following may be included: ruby_turtles,rrobots,gnuplot or rgplot
  15. concept10 said 1 day later:
    Include MySQL query browser, works great on ubuntu.
  16. assente said 1 day later:
    Nice idea. +gnome +eclipse/radrails +lighttpd
  17. Jamey Cribbs said 3 days later:
    I would like to vote for Gnome, also. I use Ubuntu as my laptop OS now, and it just feels like Gnome has been integrated a little better with Ubuntu's whole no-root user thing. Now for a totally selfish request: Any chance of including Joe (Joe's Own Editor) in Rubuntu?
  18. Deniz Rende said 3 days later:
    RadRails or a better IDE would be really nice..
  19. Mario said 4 days later:
    This is awesome. I mused about Rubuntu a little while back and now its becoming real. Personally, I vote for Gnome. Although KDE 4 is looking flippin sweet. Also, Persistence should be there for the Live CD.
  20. Ezra said 4 days later:
    Thanks everyone for the great feedback. This project seems like something a lot of people want! So I am building a few betas of it right now and making a build script that I will share with everyone once I get it stable. And I will put up a torrent somewhere for people to get the iso. I could use some help with hosting a file this large if anyone has the bandwidth ;)

    So I want to be realistic about my schedule with this since I have so many projects going on right now. I am aiming to have this in a really good state by railsconf in June. I will release some betas before then but thats when folks can expect it to be set up with everyones suggestions. I hope to make cd's of it to bring so people can get the first railsconf release of rubuntu!
  21. InkyHarmonics said 5 days later:
    Excellent, you're scratching my itch! Just last week I spent hours looking for such a distro, but never found one! I've been attending some development workshops but have rapidly grown tired of pairing with people using .Net. I want to be coding in Ruby, which means I'm going to borrow my girlfriends Windoze laptop. Unfortunately my preffered development environment is Linux/Unix. A developer oriented livecd is exactly what I need! I'd be tempted to also throw some python/java into the mix (space permiting) and provide a few common api's tools for them aswell. Whilst Ruby's my preffered language I'd hate not to be able to develop Python code when I need to. As for Java if you're going to include jedit you'll need it anyway, so why not throw in the javadocs, junit and ant while you're there? On tools 'xsel' would be nice, for copying text off the commandline to the X clipboard. I can't wait till I can download it!
  22. Martin said 5 days later:
    Guess KDE/Ruby is the more popular combo: Googlefight: kde ruby vs gnome ruby :o)
  23. Ben said 5 days later:
    The wiki link is broken... :o( How about including Amarok with it's Ruby scripting support for listening to some tunes while coding?

    * Chalks a vote up for KDE *
  24. Benjamin Curtis said 5 days later:
    Use Dapper (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DapperFlight3) -- Live CD persistence!
  25. saads said 5 days later:
    This should definitely be based on Ubuntu Dapper, which has a quite stable alpha version out now and will be released in April. Most of the components will work on both Gnome and KDE - I don't really see a problem there. It's just that the IDE's (and other GUI progs) might need the other desktop environment's bindings. You could use one as the default and then include a .deb in a repository that people can install in order to get the other. So say Gnome was the default, then you could do a "apt-get install rubuntu-kde" to install the kde specific stuff. Great effort though. All the best.
  26. Reza said 5 days later:
    Wow. May I ask for PDF::Writer and Nitro + Og? For desktop: KDE (or Enlightenment, I hear that Ebuntu will be released in a few days, about a week) Or maybe release GRUbuntu KRUbuntu, and ERUbuntu :-D
  27. Amr said 6 days later:
    Excellent!! I hope there are ppc versions as well. Thanks, Amr
  28. no.email@not.real.corn said 6 days later:
    VMWare image! Insanely cool.
  29. Saimon Moore said 10 days later:
    Ezra, this has got to be done. Do it now! :) For the jedit config..have a look at this post. I summarize what I consider to be necessary jedit plugins for ruby work. http://saimonmoore.net/permalink/jedit-for-ruby-rails-development
  30. Metin Amiroff said 11 days later:
    Ezra, will this CD be installable? It would be nice if we could install it as a server (full fledged rails production server) or a development machine. Not sure how row live CD could help without installing it. Thanks a lot, really great idea!
  31. Ezra Zygmuntowicz said 11 days later:
    Folks, after a bunch of trial and error and frustration with ubuntu;s livecd setup, I am considering using morphix as a base for this cd instead of ubuntu. It will still have all the same software that has been discussed. But morphix has easy to use options to make hd installs from the livecd and also has easy to use persistance of your changes on a thumb drive.
    I am super busy right now but I will try to get out the first release as soon as I can. Probably in the next two weeks or so.
    Thanks for all the interest!
  32. Simen said 11 days later:
    Great idea, looking forward to this! When will you release the first beta? This sounds like just what I've been looking for.
  33. saads said 11 days later:
    Ezra, if you think morphix is easier then by all means. Another way that would be just as good is if you have a script that installs and configures everything, post OS-install. It should be easy to do for Debian based distros because you could apt-get most of the stuff. It would save you a lot of headache in terms of modifying the actual OS installer.
  34. saads said 11 days later:
    And if you use morphix, what are you going to call it? Rumorphix? :)
  35. tech_sam said 13 days later:
    Great idea. Ruphix, Ruphys, Morphby?
  36. danfg said 15 days later:
    This is silly. There's no point arguing whether Gnome or KDE should make it into Rubuntu. Just add both into an installation DVD (or 2 CDs) and let the user decide whether to install either one or both. Many other distros out there do that already.

    The only reason there's a Kubuntu is because Canonical Ltd decided the installation would be more easily distributable (and downloadable) as a single CD.

    We don't have that constraint, so let's make everyone happy and distribute Rubuntu on a DVD or as 2 CDs. Problem solved.
  37. Travis said 20 days later:
    Go for Gnome. Mostly because Ubuntu has it to start with. Why change that. I like KDE too, don't get me wrong, but Gnome is just cleaner. Great work on this project by the way. We'll be in contact.
  38. thoran@fastmail.fm said 24 days later:
    How about GNUstep... There are two possible Ruby-objc bridges: RIGS or RubyCocoa.
  39. Jon Wood said 30 days later:
    I'd suggest including gedit and the snippets plugin. The latest version of gedit seems to be moving in the direction of being Textmate for Gnome - which is excellent news for Rubyists, since you can import the Textmate snippets for use in gedit.
  40. r0b0t0 said 31 days later:
    I'd love to see this with Xfce ala Slampp, another great dev LiveCD. Checkout screens if you're keen to see just how lightweight and functional it is if you are needing some ideas. I also second Saads comment on the post install installer. Cheers
  41. Andrew McElroy said 38 days later:
    Im going to have to chime in with a vote for kde, or atleast kate. If you really get comfortable with kate, it is honestly one of the most powerful ide i have seen yet. it can do things like split screen in many ways that every other ide can't. Just a suggestion. It so far has been the closest thing i have seen to what all the mac guys always demo with.
  42. doc_pepin@yahoo.com said 45 days later:
    When will you release it?
  43. ortiga said 62 days later:
    gnome pls ;]
  44. Greg Kujawa said 62 days later:
    I'd love to pull down the .ISO when it's available. Out of curiosity, have you considered hosting this project on RubyForge? That'd be a perfect place for contributors to add to what you've already done...
  45. sysop said 62 days later:
    imho, you should base it around xubuntu, xfce is pretty small compared to gnome or kde, so you can fit rubuntu into one cd with a lot of rails stuff. also how about adding phpmyadmin? i doub't i can help with packaging or coding, but lemme know when its finished and i can help seed it on torrent sites.
  46. livedistro said 62 days later:
    hi - rubuntu will come w/ apache 1.3 or 2.0? thanks
  47. Erik said 64 days later:
    There is a search plugin for Firefox that searches the Rails maillist. You can get it here: http://blog.ericgoodwin.com/articles/2006/03/25/firefox-rails-search-plugin
  48. polypus said 76 days later:
    gnome vs. kde? that's like saying windows vs. mac and ignoring the best of the pack, when where it's at is ion on linux
  49. Nicholas Wright said 116 days later:
    RubyGame is a must!
  50. daniel2501 said 117 days later:
    Awesome! I was just googling for "rubuntu" on a whim because I thought such an idea would be really cool. Glad to see you're working on it. I'll be checking it out for sure!
  51. free christian ringtone said 120 days later:
    Be free:
  52. Brian Ketelsen said 126 days later:
    Just an update : this project is now live at http://www.railslivecd.org
  53. Fredrick Stokes said 141 days later:
    I definitely cast my vote for Gnome. Also, on my wish list would be Diakonos text editor, Fox GUI toolkit, & Freeride. Really eager to get Rubuntu!
  54. David Palm said 165 days later:
    gruff? sqllite? cream? (great gvim plugins/customization package for win/mac coming to unix)? prolly need Gimp too.
  55. Tips said 179 days later:
    Interesting idea. I agree with adding Cream/gvim. It has a good Ruby on Rails plugin.
  56. CFC said 205 days later:
    If you can, in .bashrc or /etc/profile, I hope it can add below: alias vim='vim -c "set nu" -c "filetype on" -c "syn on"' Thanks!
  57. milt said 207 days later:
    I can not understand please explaine me.
  58. Bèr said 246 days later:
    KDE, If you state that you want to add kate and kdevelop, gnome makes little sense. In addition, KDE4 has full Ruby support (for desktoip widgets). KDE3x already has very good ruby support trough korundum and QT-ruby. Apps such as amarok use Ruby a lot under the surface. Also include korundum. It is a great system to very easily script KDE, and off course develop apps for KDE in ruby.
  59. segphault said 253 days later:
    Great idea! I'm looking forward to using it. My vote is for GNOME. :-) It would be great if you could have it include Glade and all of the Ruby GNOME bindings right out of the box.
  60. lsh@cousy.com said 255 days later:
    i have a
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  62. hydrocodone said 299 days later:
    hello, can you please help me?
  63. tony said 355 days later:
    Would love for this to include the ruby gtk bindings. Then I would be able to test my Win32 Ruby GTK projects under Linux. :)
  64. Marcos V Bohrer said 384 days later:
    Gnome!!
  65. André Taiar said 384 days later:
    Gnome!!!
  66. Rodrigo Kochenburger said 384 days later:
    It would be nice to have these rails plugins: eruby.vim, pastie.vim, project.vim, rails.vim and themes.vim My vote goes for KDE, btw :)
  67. Rodrigo Kochenburger said 384 days later:
    s/rails plugins/vim plugins/
  68. Warlley said 385 days later:
    Gnome.
  69. Amaikoِ said 406 days later:
    I'm Watin for This Destro Thank You
  70. Hamza said 406 days later:
    Awesome , can't wait to Try it Out Gnome , yup I Agree But it's easy to Install the Rubyonrails and it's stuff .....on Ubuntu so make it E17 or Xfce as Change
  71. writer said 419 days later:
    So cool! Can't wait to be able to use it.
  72. Beachbum [wave.slider@comcast.net] said 425 days later:
    Definitely Gnome! Please include Gnome in Rubuntu. KDE can always be easily installed afterwards if needed.
  73. watson@preferit.com said 425 days later:
    Is this still happening? I'd like to help out if I can. I have a VM that I made for people who want to try out a good ruby environment based on ubuntu. Making it into a distro shouldn't be too hard ...
  74. nephish said 431 days later:
    ubuntu and rails, great ! i wrote a quick how-to for getting gedit and other gnome editors to support rhtml files. Its at www.bitsbam.com

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