RM-Install is the second component to be released as part of their management suite for Rails. It contains the latest version of Rails (1.2.3) and is bundled with pre-compiled binary packages for Apache, MySQL, SQLite, ImageMagick and Subversion. The package is based on Ruby 1.8.6, which is the latest release.
The team at FiveRuns told InfoQ what they thought made their stack enterprise ready. They said that the stack "provides a complement of standard tools and technologies" usable by teams implementing their own Rails apps within trusted setups. It has often been lamented on by developers and system administrators alike that repeated unique customizations is tedious and often risky. FiveRuns believe that, with their new product, they can "mitigate some of this risk for [their] customers, as well as save them time."
The module is powered by BitRock, a stack deployment platform which layers on top of multiple platforms. RM-Install is due to work out of the box on various Linux distributions as well as Mac OS X. Windows support is currently being worked on and is due to be released later this year. It is expected to have the full feature set that the Linux/OS X products have.
Staying up to date is apparently easy - once you have your RM-Install environment setup, "the Ruby and update process is very simple to manage, as it's essentially the same as in a normal installation." As an added bonus to supporters of open licensing, FiveRuns are releasing their RM-Install product under the Apache 2.0 license.
