My Ubuntu 9.04 Setup for Rails Development

The what, why, and how of bringing up an Ubunto 9.04 box for development...I currently do primarily Ruby on Rails development so that is what you will find here along with the various tools I use to get the job done. The steps are listed below. You can find a file with the apt-get commands I use here. You can also find a file for the gem commands I use here, however, you will have to install rubygems manually before kicking that one off as I have had problems with the Ubuntu package management and rubygems in the past. Here are the full details:

what?	why?	how?
update your system	you just installed	sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
add the terminal to your launcher panel	quick terminal access	applications -> accessories -> right click on terminal, click add launcher to panel
get gtk to use emacs keys	you can't type without this	run gconf-editor, set /desktop/gnome/interface/gtk_key_theme to "Emacs"
change the caps lock to a control	you can't type without this	system -> preferences -> keyboard -> layouts -> layout options -> ctrl key position -> make capslock an additional ctrl
install emacs	you can't work without this	sudo apt-get install emacs
add the emacs to your launcher panel	quick emacs access	applications -> accessories -> right click on emacs, click add launcher to panel
generate a private / public key pair	you are going to use this to connect to github among other	ssh-keygen -t rsa
install git	you can't work without this	sudo apt-get install git-core
set up public key for github	typing passwords repeatedly won't work	follow instructions at github
install subversion	you can't work without this	sudo apt-get install subversion
bring in your bin/ and dotfiles from git	all your common stuff	hmmm, need to expand on this later
install emacs extensions rhtml, rinari, yasnippet, and yasnippets-rails	useful emacs extensions	ummmmm, check them out from github / google code dropping them in your .emacs.d/ directory
install build-essential	every developer needs this at some point to build something	sudo apt-get install build-essential
install ruby development environment	its your dev environment!	sudo apt-get install ruby rdoc ri libopenssl-ruby ruby1.8-dev irb
install mysql	common database for development	sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client libmysqlclient15-dev
install odbc and tds	development against SQL Server	sudo apt-get install unixodbc unixodbc-dev tdsodbc freetds-dev libodbc-ruby1.8
configure your odbcinst.ini for development with dsn-less connections	development against SQL Server	edit your /etc/odbcinst.ini to look like this: [FreeTDS] Description = TDS driver (Sybase/MS SQL) Driver = /usr/lib/odbc/libtdsodbc.so Setup = /usr/lib/odbc/libtdsS.so CPTimeout = CPReuse = FileUsage = 1
install ruby odbc stuff	will need this to work with odbc connections	sudo gem install dbi dbd-odbc
install libxml dev	will need this to install libxml-ruby	sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev
install rubygems	its your ruby packaging system! (not trusting apt-get for this yet, been burned before)	download the latest tgz, unpack, and run sudo ruby setup.rb
symlink gem to gem1.8	you don't want to have to remember to type gem1.8 all the time	cd /usr/bin && ln -s gem1.8 gem
install capistrano	rails deployment nirvana	sudo gem install capistrano
install some of the gems you will be using	rails development	sudo gem install rails mysql libxml-ruby mongrel
install firebug	web development	go get it
install git_remote_branch	makes common git tasks dead simple	sudo gem install git_remote_branch
install the flex sdk	gotta compile flex stuff	go here download the sdk and data visualization components unzip them in a flex_sdk_3 directory and make a flex symlink to that directory
install tofrodos	unix2dos, damn windows line endings	sudo apt-get install tofrodos
install java tools	yes I work with java	sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk ant