Question

I’m in the process of installing ruby using macports. I typed the following command into terminal:

sudo port install ruby

Terminal responded by returning some lines that indicated the action was working, then it just stopped returning any new lines. I typed:

which ruby

and didnt get a response, so I closed the terminal window and consequently ended the processes.

I opened a new terminal window and re-typed the original install command and now I get the following message:

Waiting for lock on /opt/local/var/macports/registry/.registry.lock

How should I proceed from here? Should I just wait? If so, how long? Will terminal try to complete this action twice? How can I know if it’s working?

Answer 1

A more appropriate thing to check, when you’ve seen no progress, is your system’s activity.

On Mac OS, you could either open “Activity Monitor” and sort by CPU, or open a terminal and type top -o cpu. Watch for some app showing consistent activity, especially something with “port” in the name.

To deal with the lock… odds are REALLY good it’s stale since you cut it off at the knees by closing the terminal, so use sudo rm /opt/local/var/macports/registry/.registry.lock to remove it and retry if you want.

I will recommend RVM for installing new versions of Ruby. It’s really convenient. Before you jump into RVM read the “Installation” and “Rubygems” pages entirely, and after installing RVM type rvm notes and follow the directions it spits out.

Finally, do not, under any circumstance, no matter how good an idea it seems to be, try to replace or upgrade the system version of Ruby installed by Apple. Apple installed it for their own use, and messing with it invites bad juju.