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Development Tools Installing a Ruby Development Environment Installing a Ruby Development Environment Installing the Treehouse VM on Mac

Kevin Fitzhenry
Kevin Fitzhenry
30,096 Points
Posted by Kevin Fitzhenry
Kevin Fitzhenry
30,096 Points

Installing Ruby on Mac vs. Treehouse VM

So, installing Ruby on Mac and using the Treehouse VM achieve the exact same result?

2 Answers

Boris Quiroz
Boris Quiroz
3,404 Points
Boris Quiroz
Boris Quiroz
3,404 Points

Yes, you'll get the same result.

Just be sure to install the same version that Workspaces are using, which is ruby 2.1.5p273 (2014-11-13 revision 48405) [x86_64-linux]

I'd like to recommend rbenv or rvm to install (and manage) your ruby versions.

Kevin Fitzhenry
Kevin Fitzhenry
30,096 Points
Kevin Fitzhenry
Kevin Fitzhenry
30,096 Points

Is there any harm in installing the most recent version of Ruby? Or will I not be able to follow along properly with the Treehouse Rails Development Track?

Boris Quiroz
Boris Quiroz
3,404 Points
Boris Quiroz
Boris Quiroz
3,404 Points

Hi Kevin,

You shouldn't get any problems as long as you install the same version of Ruby that the Rails track is using. Also, if you use a "ruby version manager" such as rbenv or rvm, you'll have a .ruby_version file that will tell to you version manger which version of ruby use in each project.

Salman Akram
PLUS
Salman Akram
Courses Plus Student 40,065 Points
Salman Akram
Salman Akram
Courses Plus Student 40,065 Points

Hi Kevin,

Yes, it would get exact same results, you don't need to install Treehouse VM.

Just Ruby development enviroment on your Mac which is excellent with terminal, text editor and browser, that's all you need.

Kevin Fitzhenry
Kevin Fitzhenry
30,096 Points
Kevin Fitzhenry
Kevin Fitzhenry
30,096 Points

If I am scared of the terminal can I just do the Treehouse VM?

Salman Akram
Salman Akram
Courses Plus Student 40,065 Points

I think that Treehouse VM was first developed before Workspaces, I don't use that much.

If you are afraid that something will hurt your computer, let's use this free Cloud9 or Nitrous Pro without installing in order to get experiment first with Ruby and terminal.

It is up to you if you want to use either Treehouse VM or flexible clouds like above. :)