I don't think anyone really develops, or deploys Ruby on Windows so nobody probably tests any Gems on Windows. Hopefully someone here is an exception and can help you. You could run a local headless Linux VM and SSH into it... On Oct 1, 2013, at 2:49 PM, Joshua Welker <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > I am attempting to write my first small Ruby app, but I am running into > major problems just getting off the ground developing in Windows. I > downloaded the most recent Ruby 2.0 package from RubyInstaller. Then I > installed DevKit so I could use gems. After some fiddling, I was finally > able to install some gems. > > > > Some. > > > > For any given gem I try to install, there’s about a 25% chance that I get > this byzantine error: > > > > ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension. > > […a whole bunch of gibberish about C headers and so forth…] > > > > In particular, I am trying to install the Blather XMPP client. I am tempted > to just give up and develop on Linux, but I am wanting to deploy this > script to Windows machines and figure I might run into problems if I don’t > develop in Windows. I have Googled the heck out of this issue and can’t > find anything that is similar to my case (the solutions on the > RubyInstaller Github wiki did not work). Do any of you Ruby people know why > I might be having this error so frequently in my Windows environment? > > > > > > > > > > Josh Welker > > Information Technology Librarian > > James C. Kirkpatrick Library > > University of Central Missouri > > Warrensburg, MO 64093 > > JCKL 2260 > > 660.543.8022