Can't install MySQL client libraries on Gentoo

Question

I'm new in Gentoo. I'm trying get the mysql2 gem installed. But it's stuck. I found out that I need MySQL client libraries. I tried:

emerge dev-db/mysql:minimal

 * IMPORTANT: 2 news items need reading for repository 'gentoo'.
 * Use eselect news to read news items.

 * IMPORTANT: config file '/etc/portage/package.keywords' needs updating.
 * See the CONFIGURATION FILES section of the emerge
 * man page to learn how to update config files.
Calculating dependencies... done!

emerge: there are no ebuilds to satisfy "dev-db/mysql:minimal".

And it is not installing. What do I need to do?

Answer 1

Gems are usually not installed through portage. To install a Ruby gem, make sure rubygems is merged and then run gem20 install <gem> or gem21 install <gem> depending on your system.

Edit: since emerge --search mysql-minimal returns nothing, you know it isn't in the portage tree and can't be installed with emerge. Running gem search mysql2 shows that the library can be installed with gem install mysql2.