Instructions

Instructions to install jekyll are listed.

  1. Install all prerequisites.

    For Fedora we have to do sudo dnf -y install ruby ruby-devel openssl-devel redhat-rpm-config @development-tools

  2. Install the jekyll and bundler gems.

    gem install jekyll bundler

  3. Create a new Jekyll site at

    jekyll new myblog

  4. Change into your new directory.

    cd myblog

  5. Build the site and make it available on a local server.

    bundle exec jekyll serve

  6. Browse to http://localhost:4000 to check out your site!!

Problems

Step 2

Step 2 does not work. In here a wise man explains the mess and how to properly install gems on Fedora by adding the next lines to your .bashrc.

# Install Ruby Gems to the default Fedora locations
export GEM_HOME=$HOME/.gem/ruby
if [[ ! -e $HOME/.gem/ruby/bin ]]
then
    ln -s $HOME/bin $HOME/.gem/ruby/
fi

Even after that, trying to install jekyll fails miserably, the problem seems to be that g++ is needed but it is not installed by default with @development-tools.

[murphy@fedora ~]$ whereis bundler
bundler: /usr/bin/bundler
# So note that bundler gets installed alongside ruby or something
# because we already did step 1
[murphy@fedora ~]$ gem install jekyll # This will fail!
Fetching terminal-table-2.0.0.gem
Fetching safe_yaml-1.0.5.gem
Fetching rouge-3.26.0.gem
Fetching forwardable-extended-2.6.0.gem
Fetching liquid-4.0.3.gem
Fetching unicode-display_width-1.7.0.gem
Fetching pathutil-0.16.2.gem
Fetching mercenary-0.4.0.gem
Fetching rexml-3.2.5.gem
Fetching kramdown-2.3.1.gem
Fetching ffi-1.15.1.gem
Fetching rb-inotify-0.10.1.gem
Fetching rb-fsevent-0.11.0.gem
Fetching listen-3.5.1.gem
Fetching kramdown-parser-gfm-1.1.0.gem
Fetching jekyll-sass-converter-2.1.0.gem
Fetching jekyll-watch-2.2.1.gem
Fetching eventmachine-1.2.7.gem
Fetching sassc-2.4.0.gem
Fetching concurrent-ruby-1.1.8.gem
Fetching i18n-1.8.10.gem
Fetching http_parser.rb-0.6.0.gem
Fetching public_suffix-4.0.6.gem
Fetching jekyll-4.2.0.gem
Fetching em-websocket-0.5.2.gem
Fetching colorator-1.1.0.gem
Fetching addressable-2.7.0.gem
Successfully installed unicode-display_width-1.7.0
Successfully installed terminal-table-2.0.0
Successfully installed safe_yaml-1.0.5
Successfully installed rouge-3.26.0
Successfully installed forwardable-extended-2.6.0
Successfully installed pathutil-0.16.2
Successfully installed mercenary-0.4.0
Successfully installed liquid-4.0.3
Successfully installed rexml-3.2.5
Successfully installed kramdown-2.3.1
Successfully installed kramdown-parser-gfm-1.1.0
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed ffi-1.15.1
Successfully installed rb-inotify-0.10.1
Successfully installed rb-fsevent-0.11.0
Successfully installed listen-3.5.1
Successfully installed jekyll-watch-2.2.1
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing jekyll:
	ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

    current directory: /home/murphy/.gem/ruby/gems/sassc-2.4.0/ext
/usr/bin/ruby -I /usr/share/rubygems -r ./siteconf20210529-2680-q2tc5b.rb extconf.rb
creating Makefile

current directory: /home/murphy/.gem/ruby/gems/sassc-2.4.0/ext
make DESTDIR\= clean
rm -f 
rm -f libsass.so  *.o  *.bak mkmf.log .*.time

current directory: /home/murphy/.gem/ruby/gems/sassc-2.4.0/ext
make DESTDIR\=
g++ -I. -I/usr/include -I/usr/include/ruby/backward -I/usr/include -I. -I./libsass/include   -fPIC -O2  -fexceptions -g -grecord-gcc-switches -pipe -Wall -Werror=format-security -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -Wp,-D_GLIBCXX_ASSERTIONS -specs=/usr/lib/rpm/redhat/redhat-hardened-cc1 -fstack-protector-strong -specs=/usr/lib/rpm/redhat/redhat-annobin-cc1  -mtune=generic -fasynchronous-unwind-tables -fstack-clash-protection -fcf-protection -std=c++11 -DLIBSASS_VERSION='"3.6.4"' -m64 -o ast.o -c ./libsass/src/ast.cpp
make: g++: No such file or directory
make: *** [Makefile:238: ast.o] Error 127

make failed, exit code 2

Gem files will remain installed in /home/murphy/.gem/ruby/gems/sassc-2.4.0 for inspection.
Results logged to /home/murphy/.gem/ruby/extensions/x86_64-linux/3.0.0/sassc-2.4.0/gem_make.out
# So why g++ is not installed with @development-tools???
[murphy@fedora ~]$ g++
bash: g++: command not found...
Install package 'gcc-c++' to provide command 'g++'? [N/y] y


 * Waiting in queue... 
The following packages have to be installed:
 gcc-c++-11.1.1-1.fc34.x86_64	C++ support for GCC
 libstdc++-devel-11.1.1-1.fc34.x86_64	Header files and libraries for C++ development
The following packages have to be updated:
 cpp-11.1.1-1.fc34.x86_64	The C Preprocessor
 gcc-11.1.1-1.fc34.x86_64	Various compilers (C, C++, Objective-C, ...)
 gcc-gdb-plugin-11.1.1-1.fc34.x86_64	GCC plugin for GDB
 libgcc-11.1.1-1.fc34.x86_64	GCC version 11 shared support library
 libgomp-11.1.1-1.fc34.x86_64	GCC OpenMP v4.5 shared support library
 libstdc++-11.1.1-1.fc34.x86_64	GNU Standard C++ Library
Proceed with changes? [N/y] y


 * Waiting in queue... 
 * Waiting for authentication... 
 * Waiting in queue... 
 * Downloading packages... 
 * Requesting data... 
 * Testing changes... 
 * Installing updates... 
 * Installing packages... 
 * Installing updates... 
 * Installing packages... 
 * Installing updates... 
 * Cleaning up packages... 
 * Installing updates... 
 * Cleaning up packages... 
 * Installing updates... 
 * Cleaning up packages... 
 * Installing updates... 
 * Cleaning up packages... 
 * Installing updates... 
 * Cleaning up packages... 
 * Installing updates... 
 * Cleaning up packages... 
 * Installing updates... 
g++: fatal error: no input files
compilation terminated.

[murphy@fedora ~]$ gem install jekyll # This will succeed!
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed sassc-2.4.0
Successfully installed jekyll-sass-converter-2.1.0
Successfully installed concurrent-ruby-1.1.8
Successfully installed i18n-1.8.10
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed http_parser.rb-0.6.0
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed eventmachine-1.2.7
Successfully installed em-websocket-0.5.2
Successfully installed colorator-1.1.0
Successfully installed public_suffix-4.0.6
Successfully installed addressable-2.7.0
Successfully installed jekyll-4.2.0
Parsing documentation for sassc-2.4.0
Installing ri documentation for sassc-2.4.0
Parsing documentation for jekyll-sass-converter-2.1.0
Installing ri documentation for jekyll-sass-converter-2.1.0
Parsing documentation for concurrent-ruby-1.1.8
Installing ri documentation for concurrent-ruby-1.1.8
Parsing documentation for i18n-1.8.10
Installing ri documentation for i18n-1.8.10
Parsing documentation for http_parser.rb-0.6.0
unknown encoding name "chunked\r\n\r\n25" for ext/ruby_http_parser/vendor/http-parser-java/tools/parse_tests.rb, skipping
Installing ri documentation for http_parser.rb-0.6.0
Parsing documentation for eventmachine-1.2.7
Installing ri documentation for eventmachine-1.2.7
Parsing documentation for em-websocket-0.5.2
Installing ri documentation for em-websocket-0.5.2
Parsing documentation for colorator-1.1.0
Installing ri documentation for colorator-1.1.0
Parsing documentation for public_suffix-4.0.6
Installing ri documentation for public_suffix-4.0.6
Parsing documentation for addressable-2.7.0
Installing ri documentation for addressable-2.7.0
Parsing documentation for jekyll-4.2.0
Installing ri documentation for jekyll-4.2.0
Done installing documentation for sassc, jekyll-sass-converter, concurrent-ruby, i18n, http_parser.rb, eventmachine, em-we

Also, as you can see in the comments above, bundler gets installed previously. So you don’t need to do gem install jekyll bundler but only gem install jekyll or you will end up having two bundlers.

Step 5

Step 5 does not work either. Here is the issue and a link to the solution. This seems to happen only with building the blog with bundle exec jekyll serve, if the blog is built with github-pages there is no problem at all.

Update: Happens in Fedora 33 and Fedora 34.