How-To: Install lolcommits On Ubuntu

Lolcat-style photos as you commit

I’ve always had problems installing lolcommits on Xubuntu and other Ubuntu-based Linux distributions.

The installation instructions are very simple. Only requiring you to run two commands, sudo apt-get install mplayer imagemagick libmagickwand-dev and then sudo gem install lolcommits (need sudo for linux). Pretty simple.

The gem install lolcommits command is where things usually go bad for me. I typically see something like this:

tyler@echo:~$ sudo gem install lolcommits
Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing lolcommits:
	ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

        /usr/bin/ruby1.9.1 extconf.rb
/usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/custom_require.rb:36:in `require': cannot load such file -- mkmf (LoadError)
	from /usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/custom_require.rb:36:in `require'
	from extconf.rb:1:in `<main>'


Gem files will remain installed in /var/lib/gems/1.9.1/gems/oj-2.0.14 for inspection.
Results logged to /var/lib/gems/1.9.1/gems/oj-2.0.14/ext/oj/gem_make.out

To fix this, you need to install a newer ruby-dev package:

sudo apt-get install ruby1.9.1-dev

You can now try to install the lolcommits gem again. It’ll actually install this time:

gem install rdoc

gem install lolcommits

A GitHub user documented this solution in issue #54. Another user suggests that the installation guide should be updated to make a note of this, but I haven’t seen it noted anywhere but in issue #54.

It’d sure save me a bit of time if it was noted somewhere, that’s partly why I’m writing this post.

After you’ve got lolocommits installed, see the README on GitHub for usage instructions and examples.

I usually run lolcommits --enable --delay=2 --fork when enabling lolcommits. That will capture a photo in a forked process, after a 2 second delay. I like this method because you’re not left waiting for the photo before being able to type into your terminal again.

Lolcommits is kinda cool, but not really useful in a practical sense. I do use it pretty much everywhere though, and have the default storage location linked to Copy. That way all my images are in the same place, no matter which machine I’m using at home.

If nothing else, it’s something kinda neat to be able to offer to your clients.