I should have really taken better notes as I got setup using fink, but here’s a braindump of what I needed for rails to work for me. Note, rmagick and me are not near as angry with each other as we were under macports.

Install Fink

Go Here - You should be able to figure out the install.

Set it to unstable

    # Edit /sw/etc/fink.conf
   # set Trees line
   Trees: local/main stable/main stable/crypto unstable/main unstable/crypto

Edit Jan 21, 2008: You’ll probably want to do a fink update-all and/or fink -dv selfupdate here.

Install fink packages

    $> sudo fink install mysql mysql-client  mysql15-dev mysql15-shlibs
   ....
   $> sudo fink install ruby ruby18 ruby18-dev ruby18-shlibs rubygems-rb18
   ....

Edit Jan 21, 2008: If you want rmagick, you’ll need to fink install imagemagick or imagemagick-nox .. it will take a while

Make sure you’re using the fink ruby

You may need to open a new shell or update your $PATH but this what it’ll look like if it’s correct

   jro@fireant:~/Desktop$ which ruby
   /sw/bin/ruby

Time for some gems

    $> sudo gem update --system
   ....
   $> sudo gem update
   ....
   $> sudo gem install mysql
   ....
   $> sudo gem install -y rails
   ....
   $> sudo gem install rmagick -- --disable-htmldoc
   ....

Edit Jan 21, 2008: You’ll probably want to setup daemonic to start mysql on system startup.

sudo daemonic enable mysql

Hopefully there aren’t too many typos/mistakes due to my poor notes. If you find any, throw up a comment and I’ll patch the post.

The only software I’m really missing right now in fink is nginx, but I’ll have more on that soon. :)