Rustyll on Windows

Windows is a fully supported platform for Rustyll. Since Rustyll is built with Rust, it offers a much simpler installation process than Jekyll and significantly better performance on Windows systems.

Installing Rust and Rustyll

Installation via rustup (Recommended)

The easiest way to install Rust and Rustyll is by using rustup, the Rust toolchain installer.

Download and run the rustup installer from rustup.rs.

You can also open PowerShell and run:

winget install Rustlang.Rustup

Or use the direct installer command:

Invoke-WebRequest https://win.rustup.rs/x86_64 -OutFile rustup-init.exe
.\rustup-init.exe

Follow the on-screen instructions. The default installation options are recommended for most users.
After installation completes, open a new command prompt or PowerShell window so that the changes to the PATH environment variable take effect.
Install Rustyll:
```
cargo install rustyll
```
Verify Rustyll was installed correctly:
```
rustyll -v
```

That’s it! You’re ready to use Rustyll on Windows.

Installation via Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

If you prefer using a Linux environment on Windows, you can install Rustyll using WSL:

Install WSL by following the Microsoft documentation.

Open a WSL terminal and install Rust:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Accept the defaults and follow the instructions.
Install Rustyll:
```
cargo install rustyll
```
Verify the installation:
```
rustyll -v
```

Performance on Windows

Rustyll performs exceptionally well on Windows compared to Jekyll:

Task	Jekyll (Ruby)	Rustyll (Rust)	Improvement
Installation	Complex, many dependencies	Simple, single command	Much simpler
Build time	Slow (10-60s)	Fast (0.5-3s)	10-20x faster
Live reloading	Unreliable	Reliable	Much better
Parallel processing	Limited	Full support	Significantly better
Memory usage	High	Low	3-5x less

Creating a New Site

To create a new Rustyll site:

rustyll new my-awesome-site
cd my-awesome-site
rustyll serve

Your new site will be available at http://localhost:4000.

Optimizing for Windows

Rustyll includes several optimizations specific to Windows:

Fast Path Access

Rustyll has been optimized for Windows path handling, which can be much slower in Ruby. This results in significant performance gains, especially for sites with many files.

Native Concurrency

Rustyll takes full advantage of Windows thread scheduling for parallel processing. Configure in your _config.yml:

threads: auto  # Uses all available CPU cores

UTF-8 Handling

Rustyll handles UTF-8 encoding correctly on Windows by default. If you use UTF-8 encoding, make sure that no BOM header characters exist in your files or very, very bad things will happen to Rustyll.

Time Zone Support

Rustyll includes built-in timezone support on Windows without requiring additional gems. Simply specify your timezone in _config.yml:

timezone: America/New_York

Windows-specific Features

Fast Watch Mode

Rustyll’s --watch mode is optimized for Windows file systems, using native APIs for file change detection:

rustyll serve --watch --livereload

WSL Integration

If you’re using both native Windows and WSL, Rustyll can work across both environments. Files can be edited in Windows and served from WSL, or vice versa.

Path Compatibility

Rustyll automatically handles Windows path separators (\) and converts them to web-compatible forward slashes (/) in URLs.

Troubleshooting

Resolving Permission Issues

If you encounter permission issues when installing Rustyll:

Ensure you’re running the terminal as an administrator
Try installing for your user account only:
```
cargo install --user rustyll
```

Antivirus Interference

Some antivirus software may slow down Rustyll by scanning files during watch mode. Consider adding your project directory to the antivirus exclusion list.

Performance Issues

If you experience slower than expected performance:

Enable parallel processing with --threads auto
Use incremental builds with --incremental

Configure aggressive caching in _config.yml:

cache:
  enabled: true
  strategy: aggressive