I am really new to Ruby and I need to use this library for a specific GUI project. I am using:
My problem is similar to the one this person described a few months ago. I have tried the solution posted on that SO page which is based on this blog post.
After running:
sudo apt-get install tcl8.5-dev tk8.5-dev
And:
sudo gem install tk
I get the following error message:
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
ERROR: Error installing tk:
ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.
current directory: /var/lib/gems/2.5.0/gems/tk-0.4.0/ext/tk
/usr/bin/ruby2.5 -r ./siteconf20210424-11015-1mre8d0.rb extconf.rb
mkmf.rb can't find header files for ruby at /usr/lib/ruby/include/ruby.h
extconf failed, exit code 1
Gem files will remain installed in /var/lib/gems/2.5.0/gems/tk-0.4.0 for inspection.
Results logged to /var/lib/gems/2.5.0/extensions/x86_64-linux/2.5.0/tk-0.4.0/gem_make.out
This error message is different from the one described in the blog post which is:
$ gem install tk
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
ERROR: Error installing tk:
ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.
# ...
Search tcl.h
checking for tcl.h... no
Search tk.h
checking for tk.h... no
Search Tcl library............*** extconf.rb failed ***
# ...
Warning:: cannot find Tcl library. tcltklib will not be compiled (tcltklib is disabled on your Ruby. That is, Ruby/Tk will not work). Please check configure options.
Can't find proper Tcl/Tk libraries. So, can't make tcltklib.so which is required by Ruby/Tk.
If you have Tcl/Tk libraries on your environment, you may be able to use them with configure options (see ext/tk/README.tcltklib).
The gem provides many switches for specifying the configuration parameters, however, the related parameters (--with-tk-lib and --with-tcl-lib) don’t yield the desired effect (actually, any effect at all).
The workaround, originally found in a Ruby forum is to symlink the libraries to the paths where the extension expects
Then, after running:
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/tcl8.5/tclConfig.sh /usr/lib/
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/tk8.5/tkConfig.sh /usr/lib/
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtcl8.5.so.0 /usr/lib/
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtk8.5.so.0 /usr/lib/
I get this (probably because I tried the same steps before):
ln: failed to create symbolic link '/usr/lib/libtk8.5.so.0': File exists
Finally, running the last step does not work:
sudo gem install tk
And the terminal returns the following error message:
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
ERROR: Error installing tk:
ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.
current directory: /var/lib/gems/2.5.0/gems/tk-0.4.0/ext/tk
/usr/bin/ruby2.5 -r ./siteconf20210424-21301-8u83wl.rb extconf.rb
mkmf.rb can't find header files for ruby at /usr/lib/ruby/include/ruby.h
extconf failed, exit code 1
Gem files will remain installed in /var/lib/gems/2.5.0/gems/tk-0.4.0 for inspection.
What should I do?
Thanks in advance.
This blog post solved the problem.
After running:
sudo apt install tk-dev
And installing Ruby/Tk gem:
gem install tk -- --with-tcltkversion=8.6 \
--with-tcl-lib=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu \
--with-tk-lib=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu \
--with-tcl-include=/usr/include/tcl8.6 \
--with-tk-include=/usr/include/tcl8.6 \
--enable-pthread
Everything was solved.