Every Flavour Beans

Don't select any frameworks, especially Struts 1.2.9, to be added to the project.

In the Add JAR/Folder file chooser dialog box, browse to the extracted Struts 2 directory, go to lib directory in it and select all the JAR files that you want to add to the project. Hold down the Ctrl button to select multiple files.

The following JAR library files are essential for most Struts 2 projects(and for this tutorial) but you can select more if you know that you need them(you can add additional libraries later also):

Libraries folder in your project will now look like this:

You can enter the same data in Filters tab also:

Edit struts.xml file such that it has the following content:

This maps the requests sent to the "/HelloStruts2World.action" url to HelloStruts2World.java Struts 2 action and after the successful execution of the request, it gets directed to the index.jsp result page. Leave the struts.properties file empty for now.

Installing Ruby:

If not already installed, install the build-essential package first:

Then install the Ruby and related packages:

Installing Rubygems

Though it is possible to install Rubygems using the Ubuntu package manager, not only will you get an old version of rubygems if you do so, it also may not be compatible with the latest version of rails. I strongly recommend you download the source code package of the latest version of rubygems and install it using its setup script:

Debian purists may frown at installing packages all over the system directories outside of control of the package manager. See Debian’s position on Rubygems. [via - RailsOnUbuntu]
Remember to download the latest version of rubygems available(currently 1.2.0). You can remove the downloaded tgz archive and the extracted directory after the installation is finished.

If Ubuntu complains that the 'gem' command is not found, you may have to create a symbolic link like this:

You can update the rubygems package by running the following command:

Installing Rails

The final step is to install the Rails gem package itself.

This will install the latest Rails version on your Ubuntu GNU/Linux. If you ever want to update Rails in the future, just run the following command:

You can update the other packages using Ubuntu's package management tools(aptitude) since that is how you installed those packages in the first place.

Installing Mongrel

Installing the Rails gem also installs the WEBrick web server which is ideally suited for development purposes. Another much recommended web server for Rails development as well as production environment is the Mongrel web server. To install the Mongrel web server, run the following gem command:

After installing Mongrel, Rails automatically starts the Mongrel instead of WEBrick web server when you run the Rails applications in development mode. (Refer to Mongrel documentation to know more about runing Rails applications under Mongrel in production mode.)

Installing MySQL

This step covers the installation of MySQL database server and its GUI tools. Skip this step if you want to use some other database server. Run the following command to install the required mysql packages:

One important step during the configuration process is to select a root password(you will need to enter it in the database.yml configuration file of your Rails application).

Installing Subversion

Finally, install your favourite revision control software - CVS, Subversion, git etc. You can install subversion in this way:

Installing Sun JDK 6 in Ubuntu 8.04 Using apt-get/aptitude

In Debian/Ubuntu based operating systems installing new packages is as simple as running aptitude command with the package name.

You also need to set JAVA_HOME environment variable in your preferred profile file(/etc/profile, $HOME/.profile or /etc/environment):

Refer to the first step of previous post in my Grails series if you need more help.

Install Sun Java SDK 6 according to the instructions for your GNU/Linux distribution.

For example, in Ubuntu you can install it like this:

Make sure that the multiverse respository is enabled. Go to System -> Adminstration -> Synaptic Package Manager. In Synaptic Package Manager, go to Settings -> Repositories. Enable the multiverse repository if not already enabled.
Click the Close button. Click Reload button on the toolbar to reload the package list. In Synaptic Package Manager, search for the "jdk" package(use Edit -> Search or Search button on the toolbar).

Scroll down the result list until you find Sun JDK 6 package, then right-click on it and select "Mark for installation."

Click the Apply button on the toolbar to install the Sun JDK package.

You can also install it from the command line in one simple step:

# sudo aptitude install sun-java6-jdk

You can similarly use 'emerge' command in Gentoo, 'yum' command in Fedora GNU/Linux distributions. You can also simply download the compressed Sun JDK 6 binary archive for GNU/Linux, uncompress it in the home directory and set its bin directory in the PATH environment variables. For more information, read Sun's JDK 6 installation notes for GNU/Linux(Yes, it's ugly).

To confirm that Java is installed and available in the system path, run the following commands:

tabrez@tabrez-ubuntu-vm:~$ java -version ; javac -version
java version "1.6.0_06"
javac 1.6.0_06

Create a new system environment variable in your profile file (e.g. $HOME/.profile or /etc/.profile or /etc/environment - whatever you prefer the most) called JAVA_HOME and set it to your Java SDK installation directory path.

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/

Run the source command to apply the profile changes to the environment immediately without needing a session or OS restart.

# source $HOME/.profile
# echo $JAVA_HOME
/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/

Download and configure Groovy package.

Download the compressed archive package of Groovy from its download page to your home directory and uncompress it.

(Remember to download the latest stable version available on the Groovy download page.)

Create GROOVY_HOME environment variable in your profile file(just like you created the JAVA_HOME variable) and set it to the directory where you have uncompressed the Groovy package. Add Groovy's bin directory to the PATH environment variable

Check the version of Groovy.

Download and configure Grails package.

Download the compressed archive package of Grails from its download page to your home directory and uncompress it.

(Remember to download the latest stable version available on the Grails download page. You can also download the compressed tar version(.tar.gz) if you don't have the unzip command installed on your distribution.)

Create GRAILS_HOME environment variable and set it to the directory where you have uncompressed the Grails package(just like you created the JAVA_HOME variable). Add Grails's bin directory to the PATH environment variable.

Make the grails command executable and check the version of Grails.

Testing the Grails Development Environment on GNU/Linux.

Now go to the post that explains how to create a Grails "Hello, World" web application to test if your Grails development environment is properly setup. It is for the Windows platform but I think that you should be able to adapt it to other platforms too. If you get into any problems, check if all the environment variables are properly set.

You can also post the error messages that you are getting somewhere on the Internet and provide the link to it in the comment section below.

Next: Alternative easy way to set up Grails development environment using package managers

There is also an easy way to setup Grails development environment using the package managers of different GNU/Linux distributions. Like installing Groovy and Grails packages in Ubuntu using the apt-get command. This easy model has certain limitations though like support only for old versions of Java, Groovy and/or Grails. I will discuss more about it in the next post. Done.