Overview
I’m poor and cheap. My free options to host a simple blog are scarce, but fortunately, I can do it using Github Pages. Github Pages is easy to use for static pages. On teh server-side, Github has implemented full of features for blog generation. Unfortunately, seeing your website before it is commited requires the installation of a bunch of software that are not user-friendly. AKA Jekyll. This is my notes, how I successfully installed it.
Requirements
This post was written assuming the following software requirements
Windows Environment:
- Windows 10
- Windows Subsystem for Linux
- Ubuntu 18.04 LTS hosted on the Microsoft Store
Installation REQUIREMENTS
################################################################################
# All This Just To Install Ruby
# ------------
# i have found the latest distrib version to be 18.x at
# https://github.com/nodesource/distributions/blob/master/deb/setup_18.x
#
# Last tested on 15/10/2022 on WSL Ubuntu 20.04.5
################################################################################
sudo apt-get update -y && sudo apt-get upgrade -y
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:brightbox/ruby-ng
sudo apt-get update
cd $HOME
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install curl
curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_18.x | sudo -E bash -
curl -sS https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/pubkey.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yarn.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git-core zlib1g-dev build-essential libssl-dev libreadline-dev libyaml-dev libsqlite3-dev sqlite3 libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev software-properties-common libffi-dev nodejs yarn
cd
git clone https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv.git ~/.rbenv
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >> ~/.bashrc
exec $SHELL
git clone https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build.git ~/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
exec $SHELL
rbenv install 3.0.1
rbenv global 3.0.1
ruby -v
###############################################################################
# REQUIREMENTS
###############################################################################
sudo apt-get -y install git curl autoconf bison build-essential
sudo apt-get -y install libssl-dev libyaml-dev libreadline6-dev zlib1g-dev
sudo apt-get -y install libncurses5-dev libffi-dev libgdbm6 libgdbm-dev libdb-dev
sudo apt-get -y install make gcc gpp build-essential zlib1g zlib1g-dev ruby-dev dh-autoreconf
###############################################################################
# GNU PG
###############################################################################
sudo apt install gnupg2
curl -sL "https://keyserver.ubuntu.com/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x2EE0EA64E40A89B84B2DF73499E82A75642AC823" | sudo apt-key add
Installation Ruby Version Manager RVM
The installation of Ruby has proven to be problematic, but I managed to successfully install it via the Ruby Version Manager (RVM).
The following script show what to do.
###############################################################################
# RVM VM is a command-line tool which allows you to easily install, manage,
# and work with multiple ruby environments from interpreters to sets of gems.
###############################################################################
curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io -o rvm.sh
curl -sSL https://rvm.io/mpapis.asc | gpg2 --import -
curl -sSL https://rvm.io/pkuczynski.asc | gpg2 --import -
cat ./rvm.sh | bash -s stable --rails
source /home/gp/.rvm/scripts/rvm
Installation RUBY
rvm install "ruby-3.1.2"
Installation BUNDLER
sudo gem update
sudo gem install bundler
bundle install
Installation JEKYLL
Finally we can install Jekyll. Now in the official install guide reference above the command given will install Jekyll v4.0.0. This is incompatible with GitHub pages as referenced in the GitHub Pages dependencies and versions. We require Jekyll v3.8.5.
It is simple to specify we want this version jekyll --version
Installation of JEKYLL Gem with:
gem install jekyll --version 3.8.5
We can also list all installed Gems and compare to the GitHub Pages requried versions by running the command gem list
gp@DESKTOP-1LEBREA:~$ gem list
*** LOCAL GEMS ***
abbrev (default: 0.1.0)
actioncable (7.0.4)
actionmailbox (7.0.4)
actionmailer (7.0.4)
actionpack (7.0.4)
actiontext (7.0.4)
actionview (7.0.4)
activejob (7.0.4)
activemodel (7.0.4)
activerecord (7.0.4)
activestorage (7.0.4)
activesupport (7.0.4)
base64 (default: 0.1.0)
benchmark (default: 0.1.1)
bigdecimal (default: 3.0.0)
builder (3.2.4)
bundler (default: 2.2.3)
bundler-unload (1.0.2)
cgi (default: 0.2.0)
concurrent-ruby (1.1.10)
crass (1.0.6)
csv (default: 3.1.9)
date (default: 3.1.0)
debug (default: 0.1.0)
delegate (default: 0.2.0)
did_you_mean (default: 1.5.0)
digest (default: 3.0.0)
drb (default: 2.0.4)
english (default: 0.7.1)
erb (default: 2.2.0)
erubi (1.11.0)
etc (default: 1.2.0)
executable-hooks (1.6.1)
fcntl (default: 1.0.0)
fiddle (default: 1.0.6)
fileutils (default: 1.5.0)
find (default: 0.1.0)
forwardable (default: 1.3.2)
gdbm (default: 2.1.0)
gem-wrappers (1.4.0)
getoptlong (default: 0.1.1)
globalid (1.0.0)
i18n (1.12.0)
io-console (default: 0.5.6)
io-nonblock (default: 0.1.0)
io-wait (default: 0.1.0)
ipaddr (default: 1.2.2)
irb (default: 1.3.0)
json (default: 2.5.1)
logger (default: 1.4.3)
loofah (2.19.0)
mail (2.7.1)
marcel (1.0.2)
matrix (default: 0.3.1)
method_source (1.0.0)
mini_mime (1.1.2)
minitest (5.14.2)
mutex_m (default: 0.1.1)
net-ftp (default: 0.1.1)
net-http (default: 0.1.1)
net-imap (default: 0.1.1)
net-pop (default: 0.1.1)
net-protocol (default: 0.1.0)
net-smtp (default: 0.2.1)
nio4r (2.5.8)
nkf (default: 0.1.0)
nokogiri (1.13.8 x86_64-linux)
observer (default: 0.1.1)
open-uri (default: 0.1.0)
open3 (default: 0.1.1)
openssl (default: 2.2.0)
optparse (default: 0.1.0)
ostruct (default: 0.3.1)
pathname (default: 0.1.0)
power_assert (1.2.0)
pp (default: 0.1.0)
prettyprint (default: 0.1.0)
prime (default: 0.1.2)
pstore (default: 0.1.1)
psych (default: 3.3.0)
racc (default: 1.5.1)
rack (2.2.4)
rack-test (2.0.2)
rails (7.0.4)
rails-dom-testing (2.0.3)
rails-html-sanitizer (1.4.3)
railties (7.0.4)
rake (13.0.3)
rbs (1.0.0)
rdoc (default: 6.3.0)
readline (default: 0.0.2)
readline-ext (default: 0.1.1)
reline (default: 0.2.0)
resolv (default: 0.2.0)
resolv-replace (default: 0.1.0)
rexml (3.2.4)
rinda (default: 0.1.0)
rss (0.2.9)
rubygems-bundler (1.4.5)
rvm (1.11.3.9)
securerandom (default: 0.1.0)
set (default: 1.0.1)
shellwords (default: 0.1.0)
singleton (default: 0.1.1)
stringio (default: 3.0.0)
strscan (default: 3.0.0)
syslog (default: 0.1.0)
tempfile (default: 0.1.1)
test-unit (3.3.7)
thor (1.2.1)
time (default: 0.1.0)
timeout (default: 0.1.1)
tmpdir (default: 0.1.1)
tracer (default: 0.1.1)
tsort (default: 0.1.0)
typeprof (0.11.0)
tzinfo (2.0.5)
un (default: 0.1.0)
uri (default: 0.10.1)
weakref (default: 0.1.1)
websocket-driver (0.7.5)
websocket-extensions (0.1.5)
yaml (default: 0.1.1)
zeitwerk (2.6.1)
zlib (default: 1.1.0)
Execute local server and test website
Go in the local directory where you cloned your Githu pages project and run this command:
cd /mnt/c/Users/gp/www/arsscriptum.github.io/
bundle exec jekyll serve --livereload --unpublished --incremental
Full Script on Github
Get the full script here
IMPORTANT NOTE
I have observed that windows Subystem for Linux sometimes requires a restart when the website is not updated properly in my browser.
To stop and restart WSL do this:
function Restart-WSL {
$MyWsl = (Get-Command 'wsl.exe').Source
&"$MyWsl" "--shutdown"
}
