Installing RoR 3.x on Ubuntu 10.4 with MySQL

I'm writing this as a reminder for myself.
To install Rails (3.x) on Ubuntu 10.4 with a MySQL gem do the following:


sudo su
apt-get install build-essential
apt-get install ruby rdoc libopenssl-ruby
wget http://production.cf.rubygems.org/rubygems/rubygems-1.3.7.tgz
tar zxvf rubygems-1.3.7.tgz
cd rubygems-1.3.7
ruby setup.rb
ln -s /usr/bin/gem1.8 /usr/local/bin/gem
sudo apt-get install ruby1.8-dev
gem install rails

To install the MySQL gem: 

apt-get install ruby-dev libmysql-ruby libmysqlclient-dev

gem install mysql

After creating the application using
rails new myApplicationName -d mysql
Running the rake db:migrate will result in error, since it requires a JS engine.
To fix that, edit the Gemfile in the application directory and add the following lines:


gem 'execjs'
gem 'therubyracer'

and then run
bundle install

* Another option is to install NodeJS on the machine, as the javascript engine by following these steps:

sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chris-lea/node.js
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nodejs npm

.

Mysql2::Error (Invalid date: xx) on a text field?!

I have this rule, the longer it takes to figure out a bug, the dumber the solution is going to be. This one was no exception.This bug on the rails adapter for mysql (the native Mysql2 for Windows) cost me a day and a half of bewilderment.


The symptoms were that when populating a particular field in a table caused the created_at filed that was directly after to corrupt.
Although the entry would save successfully, once i tried to retrieve it, it would omit an argument error, without  any explanations  or indication to the field that was causing the problem.

After literally hours spent reinstalling and reconfiguring and redeploying my application and the run times involves i stumbled upon this error "Mysql2::Error (Invalid date: xx)" where xx was the text value of the field preceding the "created_at" standard field.
A quick search on Google pointed me to the bug in Mysql2.

My solution was (cross my heart and hope to die) was to add an extra field that i never populate before the date fields.

Good Luck.