Error installing mysql2 gem on Debian Squeeze

Question

I got this "popular" error while installing mysql2 gem on Debian Squeeze:

gem install mysql2
Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing mysql2:
    ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

        /usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/bin/ruby extconf.rb
checking for rb_thread_blocking_region()... yes
checking for rb_wait_for_single_fd()... no
checking for mysql.h... yes
checking for errmsg.h... yes
checking for mysqld_error.h... yes
creating Makefile

make
gcc -I. -I/usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/include/ruby-1.9.1/i686-linux -I/usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/include/ruby-1.9.1/ruby/backward -I/usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/include/ruby-1.9.1 -I. -DHAVE_RB_THREAD_BLOCKING_REGION -DHAVE_MYSQL_H -DHAVE_ERRMSG_H -DHAVE_MYSQLD_ERROR_H  -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -I/usr/include/mysql -DBIG_JOINS=1  -fno-strict-aliasing  -g -fPIC -O3 -ggdb -Wextra -Wno-unused-parameter -Wno-parentheses -Wpointer-arith -Wwrite-strings -Wno-missing-field-initializers -Wno-long-long  -fPIC -Wall -funroll-loops  -o client.o -c client.c
gcc -I. -I/usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/include/ruby-1.9.1/i686-linux -I/usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/include/ruby-1.9.1/ruby/backward -I/usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/include/ruby-1.9.1 -I. -DHAVE_RB_THREAD_BLOCKING_REGION -DHAVE_MYSQL_H -DHAVE_ERRMSG_H -DHAVE_MYSQLD_ERROR_H  -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -I/usr/include/mysql -DBIG_JOINS=1  -fno-strict-aliasing  -g -fPIC -O3 -ggdb -Wextra -Wno-unused-parameter -Wno-parentheses -Wpointer-arith -Wwrite-strings -Wno-missing-field-initializers -Wno-long-long  -fPIC -Wall -funroll-loops  -o mysql2_ext.o -c mysql2_ext.c
gcc -I. -I/usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/include/ruby-1.9.1/i686-linux -I/usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/include/ruby-1.9.1/ruby/backward -I/usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/include/ruby-1.9.1 -I. -DHAVE_RB_THREAD_BLOCKING_REGION -DHAVE_MYSQL_H -DHAVE_ERRMSG_H -DHAVE_MYSQLD_ERROR_H  -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -I/usr/include/mysql -DBIG_JOINS=1  -fno-strict-aliasing  -g -fPIC -O3 -ggdb -Wextra -Wno-unused-parameter -Wno-parentheses -Wpointer-arith -Wwrite-strings -Wno-missing-field-initializers -Wno-long-long  -fPIC -Wall -funroll-loops  -o result.o -c result.c
result.c: In function ‘rb_mysql_result_fetch_fields’:
result.c:381: warning: comparison between signed and unsigned integer expressions
gcc -shared -o mysql2.so client.o mysql2_ext.o result.o -L. -L/usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/lib -Wl,-R/usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/lib -L.  -rdynamic -Wl,-export-dynamic -Wl,-rpath,/usr/lib   -Wl,-R -Wl,/usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/lib -L/usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/lib -lruby -L/usr/lib -lmysqlclient_r -lpthread -lz -lm -lrt -lssl -lcrypto -ldl  -lpthread -lrt -ldl -lcrypt -lm   -lc
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lmysqlclient_r
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [mysql2.so] Error 1


Gem files will remain installed in /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/mysql2-0.3.11 for inspection.
Results logged to /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/mysql2-0.3.11/ext/mysql2/gem_make.out

There are a lot of search results at stack overflow but none of them would fix my Problem.

libmysqlclient-dev - MySQL database development files
libmysqlclient18 - MySQL database client library

are installed via dot deb repo.

mysql-server is installed, too.

The following files related to libmysqlclient could be found at /usr/lib

/usr/lib/libmysqlclient.so.18
/usr/lib/libmysqlclient_r
/usr/lib/libmysqlclient.so
/usr/lib/libmysqlclient.so.16.0.0
/usr/lib/libmysqlclient.a
/usr/lib/libmysqlclient_r.so.16
/usr/lib/libmysqlclient.so.16
/usr/lib/libmysqlclient.so.18.0.0
/usr/lib/libmysqlclient_r.so.16.0.0

Answer 1

It seems the the problem with the native extensions is the lack of the header files (.h) They are typically found in the -dev libraries

sudo apt-get install libmysqlclient-dev

gem install mysql2

solves the problem for Debian/Ubuntu.