Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

CSS Compass Basics Getting Started with Compass Installing Compass

Posted by Ted Sumner
Ted Sumner
Courses Plus Student 17,967 Points

Installing compass on Linux Mint.

I ran into problems installing Compass on Linux Mint and wanted to share the solution I found.

I got this error on installation:

ted@ted-Lenovo-G770 ~ $ sudo gem install compass
[sudo] password for ted: 
Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing compass:
    ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

        /usr/bin/ruby1.9.1 extconf.rb
/usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/custom_require.rb:36:in `require': cannot load such file -- mkmf (LoadError)
    from /usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/custom_require.rb:36:in `require'
    from extconf.rb:4:in `<main>'


Gem files will remain installed in /var/lib/gems/1.9.1/gems/ffi-1.9.8 for inspection.
Results logged to /var/lib/gems/1.9.1/gems/ffi-1.9.8/ext/ffi_c/gem_make.out
ted@ted-Lenovo-G770 ~ $

The issue ultimately was not having the dev tools installed. There is a package in Mint called ruby1.9.1-dev that needed to be installed first (as of 6/5/2015).

I still get the following error when checking the version, however.

ted@ted-Lenovo-G770 ~ $ compass -v --trace
Errno::ENOENT on line ["25"] of /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/compass/version.rb: No such file or directory - /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/compass/../../VERSION.yml
  /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/compass/version.rb:25:in `read_version'
  /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/compass/version.rb:13:in `version'
  /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/compass/commands/print_version.rb:59:in `long_output_string'
  /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/compass/commands/print_version.rb:94:in `execute'
  /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/compass/commands/default.rb:46:in `execute'
  /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/compass/exec/sub_command_ui.rb:43:in `perform!'
  /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/compass/exec/sub_command_ui.rb:15:in `run!'
  /usr/bin/compass:30:in `block in <main>'
  /usr/bin/compass:44:in `call'
  /usr/bin/compass:44:in `<main>'
ted@ted-Lenovo-G770 ~ $

I will update if and when I find the solution for this problem.

2 Answers

Ted Sumner
Ted Sumner
Courses Plus Student 17,967 Points

I don't recall now, but I have since discovered that compass is in the Software Manager..........

jason chan
jason chan
31,009 Points
jason chan
jason chan
31,009 Points

did you run 

gem update  --system