Guide: How to make Rails 8 run on a M1 MacBook
Rails 8 finally came out and instead of simply upgrading and getting started with all of its new and cool features, I faced tons of red error messages, telling me my MacBook is not willing to run Ruby or install some of the gems needed. What a bummer! But after some failed attempts using rvm and rbenv, luckily I found a way to make it work!
To successfully install Ruby and Rails 8 on your M1 MacBook running macOS Sequoia 15.1, you’ll likely encounter compatibility issues with ARM64 and the installation process can be quite bumpy. Here’s how I managed to install Rails 8 and all necessary dependencies, using asdf:
0. Activate Rosetta 2
Feel free to try going through the whole process without Rosetta first. In my case, I was only able to successfully install everything after activating it. Here you can find Apple’s Guide on How to install and activate Rosetta on your Mac.
1. Prerequisites
Install Xcode Command Line Tools
xcode-select --install
Install Homebrew (if not already installed)
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
Follow the post-installation instructions to add Homebrew to your path (something like echo 'eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"' >> ~/.zprofile).
Update Homebrew and Install Dependencies
brew update
brew install openssl readline libyaml zlib gpg autoconf automake bison libffi jq
2. Install asdf
Clone and set up asdf
git clone https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf.git ~/.asdf --branch v0.13.1
echo '. $HOME/.asdf/asdf.sh' >> ~/.zshrc
echo '. $HOME/.asdf/completions/asdf.```bash' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc
Install asdf Plugins
asdf plugin add ruby
asdf plugin add nodejs
For Node.js, asdf requires GPG to verify downloads:
bash ~/.asdf/plugins/nodejs/bin/import-release-team-keyring
3. Install Ruby
Set up Ruby Dependencies
For ARM64, ensure correct paths:
export RUBY_CONFIGURE_OPTS="--with-opt-dir=$(brew --prefix openssl) --enable-shared"
Install Ruby via asdf
asdf install ruby latest
asdf global ruby latest
Verify the installation:
ruby --version
#=> ruby 3.3.5 (2024-09-03 revision ef084cc8f4) [x86_64-darwin24]
You can also check the installed plugins. The output should look something like this:
asdf list
#=> nodejs
#=> *22.4.0
#=> ruby
#=> *3.3.5
4. Install Rails 8
Update RubyGems
gem update --system
Install Rails
gem install rails
Again, confirm that Rails is installed and works:
rails --version
#=> Rails 8.0.0
5. Additional Configuration
Configure Bundler
gem install bundler
Create a New Rails Project
rails new myapp
cd myapp
bin/rails server
Visit http://localhost:3000 to confirm everything is running correctly.
CONGRATULATIONS!
NOW YOU CAN HAVE FUN DIVING INTO RAILS 8 💎❤️🛤️