Introduction

Jekyll is a popular static site generator for creating blogs, documentation, and personal websites.

Bundler is a package manager for Ruby, which helps manage dependencies in Jekyll projects.

This guide goes through the process of installing Jekyll and Bundler in Vanilla OS using apx.

Installing Jekyll and Bundler

Open your preferred Terminal emulator/application, and follow the steps to install it in a specific container.

Ubuntu container

Enter the container using the following command:-

apx enter

Install the required prerequisite packages using the following command:-

sudo apt-get install ruby-full build-essential zlib1g-dev

After installation, execute the following commands:-

echo '# Install Ruby Gems to ~/gems' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'export GEM_HOME="$HOME/gems"' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/gems/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Now, install Jekyll and Bundler using the following command:-

gem install jekyll bundler

You have now successfully installed the packages. You can execute them using apx run <command>, or directly by entering the container using apx enter.

Optionally, you can export the binary to use it from the host directly without requiring the apx run command. You can do this by using the following commands:-

apx export --bin jekyll
apx export --bin bundler

Fedora container

Enter the container using the following command:-

apx enter --dnf

Install the required prerequisite packages using the following command:-

sudo dnf install ruby ruby-devel make gcc g++

Now, install Jekyll using the following command:-

gem install jekyll

You have now successfully installed the packages. You can execute them using apx run --dnf <command>, or directly by entering the container using apx enter --dnf.

Optionally, you can export the binary to use it from the host directly without requiring the apx run --dnf command. You can do this by using the following commands:-

apx export --dnf --bin jekyll
apx export --dnf --bin bundler

Arch Linux container

Enter the container using the following command:-

apx enter --aur

Install the required prerequisite packages using the following command:-

sudo pacman -S ruby base-devel

Now, install Jekyll using the following command:-

gem install jekyll

You have now successfully installed the packages. You can execute them using apx run --aur <command>, or directly by entering the container using apx enter --aur.

Optionally, you can export the binary to use it with the host directly without requiring the apx run --aur command. You can do this by using the following commands:-

apx export --aur --bin jekyll
apx export --aur --bin bundler

Testing sites using Jekyll locally

Navigate to the required directory for the site.

Optionally, Run bundler install to install necessary packages (This step is required only once and doesn’t require re-running it in future. You must have a Gemfile in the repository for this command to work).

Run jekyll build or bundler exec jekyll build to build the page to ./_site once.

Then you can either test the pages manually or use jekyll serve or bundler exec jekyll serve command to build your site any time a source file changes and serve it locally.

Navigate to http://127.0.0.1:4000/ or http://localhost:4000/ in your browser to preview and test the page.

Tip:-

You can test your pages on your phone using bundler exec jekyll serve --host=<ip>.

Using 0.0.0.0 instead of a specific IP binds port 4000 to any interface, which is prone to be blocked by your routers firewalls. That’s why we recommended using a particular IP address with the --host flag. After executing the command in any browser on your phone, go to this address <ip>:4000.

For example, if the IP you used is 192.168.0.123, you will need to visit 192.168.0.123:4000 on your mobile.

Conclusion

You have now successfully installed Jekyll & Bundler via the command line and successfully served and tested your site locally.