Rails 3 Beta has been just released and it comes with plenty of new features. You can try this new version using BitNami RubyStack easily. With RubyStack, you can keep separated, self-contained environments that you can create or remove with ease, so you can test Rails 3 without disrupting your current development setup. RubyStack is available as native installers, virtual appliances or cloud images.

For Windows users:

• Start the “Use BitNami RubyStack” console from the Windows shortcuts. It is necessary to start it as Administrator user.
• Type the following in the command prompt:
  
  

  > gem install tzinfo builder memcache-client rack rack-test rack-mount erubis mail text-format thor bundler i18n --no-ri --no-rdoc
  > gem install rails --pre

• That’s all. Once all gem are installed you can create and test your Rails 3 application:
  
  

  > rails demo
  > cd demo
  > ruby script/rails server

• You can go to your favorite browser at http//127.0.0.1:3000 to visit the default Rails 3 application.

For Linux and OS X users:

• Start the “rubyconsole” in your installation directory. You can double-click in the console icon or launch it from a Terminal:
  

  $ cd <rubystack_installation_directory>
  $ ./rubyconsole 
  

• Install the required gems and the rails 3 Beta gem:

$ gem install tzinfo builder memcache-client rack rack-test rack-mount erubis mail text-format thor bundler i18n --no-ri --no-rdoc
$ gem install rails --pre

• Once all gem are installed you can create and test your Rails 3 application using MySQL database:
  
  

  $ cd projects
  $ rails demo -d mysql
  

• It is necessary to configure the database. You can copy the same configuration from the previous demo application.
  

  $ cp rubystack/config/database.yml demo/config

• That’s all. You can start the demo application.
  

  $ cd demo
  $ script/rails server

• You can go to your favorite browser at http//127.0.0.1:3000 to visit the default Rails 3 application.