Windows WSL and GitHub Pages
The following information will help you set up your Windows-based PC to work with GitHub Pages using Ruby and Jekyll within the WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) environment. This setup will allow you to work with your files directly and run jekyll serve
to test locally.
This guide assumes you have installed WSL2 using Ubuntu (which includes Git by default) as your Linux distribution.
Set Up Git Global Variables
First, you’ll want to configure a couple of Git settings. These settings ensure your Git commits and changes are tied to you.
Set Your Name & Email
git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "your@email.tld"
Install Ruby
Jekyll is built using Ruby, so you’ll need it to test and build your GitHub Pages website. Start by installing a Ruby Environment Manager, in this case rbenv, which allows you to set and use a specific version of Ruby. Since GitHub Pages builds with Jekyll v3.9.0, the maximum supported version of Ruby is v2.7.5.
Install Ruby Environment Manager
sudo apt install rbenv
Add rbenv to PATH
echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >> ~/.bashrc
Install rbenv Ruby Build
mkdir -p "$(rbenv root)"/plugins
git clone https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build.git "$(rbenv root)"/plugins/ruby-build
Run rbenv-doctor to Verify Installation
curl -fsSL https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv-installer/raw/main/bin/rbenv-doctor | bash
If successful, you should see output similar to this:
Checking for 'rbenv' in PATH: /usr/local/bin/rbenv
Checking for rbenv shims in PATH: OK
Checking 'rbenv install' support: /usr/local/bin/rbenv-install
Counting installed Ruby versions: none
There aren't any Ruby versions installed under '~/.rbenv/versions'.
You can install Ruby versions like so: rbenv install 2.2.4
Checking RubyGems settings: OK
Auditing installed plugins: OK
Install Ruby
rbenv install 2.7.5
Set Local Ruby Version
rbenv local 2.7.5
This command tells rbenv which version of Ruby to use for this project. At this point, you should be able to run ruby -v
to check your Ruby installation. It should return something like ruby 2.7.5
. If the version matches what you just installed, you’re good to go.
Install Bundler
Finally, you’ll want to install Bundler. Bundler allows you to safely run Ruby gems on your system without requiring elevated (sudo) permissions.
gem install bundler