How to install the MySQL Ruby Gem on Ubuntu 9.10?

I am having a problem installing the Ruby Gem for MySQL. This is the command that I am running:

sudo gem install mysql

and this is the output that I'm getting:

Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing mysql:
    ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

/usr/bin/ruby1.8 extconf.rb
checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no
checking for main() in -lm... yes
checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no
checking for main() in -lz... yes
checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no
checking for main() in -lsocket... no
checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no
checking for main() in -lnsl... yes
checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no
checking for main() in -lmygcc... no
checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no
*** extconf.rb failed ***
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
necessary libraries and/or headers.  Check the mkmf.log file for more
details.  You may need configuration options.

Provided configuration options:
    --with-opt-dir
    --without-opt-dir
    --with-opt-include
    --without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include
    --with-opt-lib
    --without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib
    --with-make-prog
    --without-make-prog
    --srcdir=.
    --curdir
    --ruby=/usr/bin/ruby1.8
    --with-mysql-config
    --without-mysql-config
    --with-mysql-dir
    --without-mysql-dir
    --with-mysql-include
    --without-mysql-include=${mysql-dir}/include
    --with-mysql-lib
    --without-mysql-lib=${mysql-dir}/lib
    --with-mysqlclientlib
    --without-mysqlclientlib
    --with-mlib
    --without-mlib
    --with-mysqlclientlib
    --without-mysqlclientlib
    --with-zlib
    --without-zlib
    --with-mysqlclientlib
    --without-mysqlclientlib
    --with-socketlib
    --without-socketlib
    --with-mysqlclientlib
    --without-mysqlclientlib
    --with-nsllib
    --without-nsllib
    --with-mysqlclientlib
    --without-mysqlclientlib
    --with-mygcclib
    --without-mygcclib
    --with-mysqlclientlib
    --without-mysqlclientlib


Gem files will remain installed in /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mysql-2.8.1 for inspection.
Results logged to /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mysql-2.8.1/ext/mysql_api/gem_make.out

What do I need to do in order to get this to install?

Solution 1:

Thanks to this thread I found out that the reason it fails to install is because of

... a path pointing the wrong way when the package was compiled.

Thankfully the solution is very simple:

sudo gem uninstall mysql
sudo apt-get install libmysqlclient-dev -y
sudo gem install mysql 

Note: I got an error message trying to uninstall mysql, but that's okay because it wasn't installed in the first place. While installing the mysql gem, I got messages that looked like errors: No definition for next_result, but those aren't errors. This happens when installing the documentation. They are just messages saying that there isn't any documentation available for certain functions.

Solution 2:

You do not really need that gem to use MySQL in Ruby. There is a package in Debian/Ubuntu that already has same code already compiled and prepared. Just type sudo apt-get install libmysql-ruby.

Solution 3:

On Ubuntu Hardy, 8.04 I got the apt-get install to work with:

sudo apt-get install libmysqlclient15-dev -y