CentOS Net Install

By installing Linux over the network, you can get up and running a lot faster. Every time I try this, I end up searching for way too long to find out what mirrors I should be using. Thanks to this post, I was pointed in the right direction.

HTTP Install

Web site name: mirror.centos.org

CentOS directory: /centos-5/5.4/os/x86_64/

Note: Adjust the version number and architecture for whatever you're installing

Note: You can find out the path by drilling down through the directories at mirror.centos.org

Ubuntu Karmic 9.10 and ruby-pg

PostgreSQL, Ubuntu, and Rails seem exactly like a winning combination for the type of work I do.

As of this writing (March 12, 2010), the best driver to connect Rails and PostgreSQL is easily ruby-pg. My development environment is Snow Leopard, and my troubles installing ruby-pg on OS X were alleviated by this very helpful article at icoretech.

My server environment of choice is Ubuntu. Getting things up and running had me stumbling a bit again with the ruby-pg gem driver. Turns out the solution is simple -- just install the postgresql-server-dev-8.4 package and the gem installs fine.

The following steps will have PostgreSQL 8.4 and the ruby-pg driver up and running on your Ubuntu Karmic system (assuming you've already installed Ruby)

sudo apt-get install postgresql
sudo apt-get install postgresql-server-dev-8.4
sudo gem install pg