Rails development Mac OS or Windows

Question

I am currently starting Ruby on Rails development and currently use Windows (XP or 7), but I find lots of cases where gems don't seem to do what they should or its a pain to install and use them under Windows, like twitter-bootstrap seems fine for Mac OS but I had to work out that sass-bootstrap was better for Windows. It just goes on and on, like today I cannot seem to get launchy to do its thing when RSpec testing, although I know that my lack of experience doesn't help.

So should I just get a Mac ? Would getting a Mac give me an easier life ? Most RoR developers seem to use them and most example tutorials seem to assume I do to.

Thanks for any advice

score 7 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 26 '13 at 11:36

The simplest answer is you can do RoR development on any of the platforms easily.

Personally, I started doing development in Windows, then switched to VirtualBox on windows running Ubuntu. I now have a MacBook Pro and must say it's the happiest environment so far!

Windows - Reasonably straightforward to install rails, but seemed much slower that other enviroments. Lack of simple console with color highlighting was annoying

Ubuntu - Faster than under windows (even when virtualized!). If you don't know linux, it's a lot less fun, steep learning curve for command line stuff and lots of dependencies to resolve

Mac - Best of both worlds, pretty UI for day to day stuff, awesome command line support, Ruby and RoR run super fast on MacBook Pro.

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:52

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I don't use a mac, I use linux, but I switched from Windows early in my experience with Rails. Using a mac is way better than using windows. The cheap option is to just dual-boot your windows machine with Ubuntu.

Just get off of windows.

See this for more details: Getting Ruby on Rails environment working and installing sqlite3

Edit: VirtualBox is also an option for those whose processor supports it.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:52

Community

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answered Mar 26 '13 at 10:34

Brian Petro

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Or Arch, Mint, Gentoo or whatever you like. – Cubic Mar 26 '13 at 10:37

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 26 '13 at 10:33

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i would suggest to try out with any linux versions like Ubuntu, centos, fedora...

answered Mar 26 '13 at 10:33

Soni Kishan

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score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 26 '13 at 11:12

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I think you can use linux version - ubuntu 12.04 because there are some ruby gems that are not working on windows like rubyracer, less-rails.

answered Mar 26 '13 at 11:12

r15

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score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 26 '13 at 10:50

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Install VirtualBox and run an Ubuntu or Redhat virtual linux machine.

answered Mar 26 '13 at 10:50

mcfinnigan

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score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 02 '13 at 17:20

I develop in Rails under Windows at work and at home most of the time. There are a few instances where gems won't work or will require a little more work to get running properly. There are also instances where developing on Windows and deploying to Linux/*NIX environment can cause problems, usually involving Windows-specific gems in your Gemfile.lock which aren't compatible on Linux/*NIX.

All-in-all, it's not too much trouble as long as you watch out for the gotchas.

I also use Mac OS X for Rails development and I like the development experience much more than I do on Windows. That being said, I certainly don't need a Mac to be able to develop in Rails effectively.

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Mar 26 '13 at 10:51

I also started with Rails development and recently bought myself a MacBook Pro. A Mac has solutions for running Windows, in case you also still need to do development on the Microsoft technology stack. You can install Windows via Bootcamp, which is a built in solution. Or run Windows in a virtual instance with virtualization software like Parallels.

hope this helps,

Anthony

Rails development Mac OS or Windows

7 Answers7