Yep, installing Rails and setting up a development environment is the biggest hurdle for a newcomer. I wrote a stand-alone article that provides in-depth instructions for Mac, Ubuntu, and Windows. As a standalone article, it is easier for me to update (than if I were to include it in the book), plus it is available for free for everyone who needs it.

http://railsapps.github.io/installing-rails.html

I found Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial (http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ruby-on-rails-tutorial-book#se...) to have a great walkthrough for the initial setup. I particularly like that it gets you up and running to Heroku before the end of the first chapter.

several of us kickstarted a rails.app, but it isn't done yet. They have the open source version up atm and some somewhat dated binaries. (I know a lot of us were hoping to never have to configure ruby again, as we only use it for cocopods an iOS development tool)

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1397300529/railsapp

https://github.com/tokaido/tokaidoapp

https://trello.com/b/ZPhBe7Fh/tokaido-app

Binary: https://github.com/tokaido/tokaidoapp/releases

This is where tools like https://www.nitrous.io are awesome. We just hosted a RailsBridge-type event and we used Nitrous. Highly recommend this for teaching.

Here's my article about getting started with Rails on Nitrous.io:

http://railsapps.github.io/rubyonrails-nitrous-io.html

Nitrous.io is a great way for any beginner to get started, especially for those using Windows.