While creating a development environment for a Ruby project earlier I ran into an error installing some of the gems required by the project. I realized that I had installed an older version of RubyGems which was causing problems with some of the gem dependents that needed to be installed. Below I list one of the examples of the errors I was running into and how I resolved the issue.
Most gems are very easy to install however they have typically been created for a Linux environment such as CentOS, RedHat, or OS X. This can cause all sorts of issues with libraries, compilers, etc. because less time has been spent making sure that these gems install on all versions of Windows because of all the differences. It is much easier to make sure that the gems install across all UNIX/Linux versions instead of the Windows versions.
When attempting to install eventmachine on a Windows server or regular PC you will run across an error. The error will spit out a bunch of data including install switches along with some other error information such as the below.
There are numerous reasons it is beneficial to have your own gem server including controlling the versions of various gems deployed to all of your servers. Below is a brief explanation of how to install a gem server on your local network.
1. Install Web Server: If you do not already have a web server installed then install LiteSpeed or Apache