Alright, folks, lemme tell ya ’bout this gig. Had to get Gatsby running on ‘Ross’. And no, Ross ain’t some cool new cloud thing. It was the client’s server, this old clunker they were super attached to. ‘Gotta be on Ross,’ they kept saying.
I thought, ‘Sure, Gatsby makes static sites, piece of cake.’ Yeah, right. First thing, Node. Ross was running something ancient. Trying to get a modern Node version on there without messing up their other stuff? Man, it was like walking on eggshells, blindfolded.
Then, actually building the site. Building on my own machine was a breeze, naturally. But getting Ross to play nice, or even just serve the darn files properly with its whacky setup? Total headache.
- File permissions were a tangled web.
- The server software was some home-brewed monster.
- And the error messages? Pure gobbledygook, I tell ya.
I wasted, and I mean wasted, a whole week on this. Just trying stuff, failing, trying again. Drank so much coffee I could taste colors. My dog started avoiding me. I was pulling my hair out, digging through old forums, anything. But Ross just wouldn’t budge. Stubborn as a mule.
How I Finally Beat Ross (Kinda)
So what finally worked? It was a bit silly, really, and not exactly elegant. I had to make the Gatsby site super, super basic. Stripped it right down. And then, to get it onto Ross, I cooked up these janky scripts. FTP the files over, then SSH in and fiddle with a ton of settings by hand. A real hack job.
But, hey, it got the site up. On Ross. Client was happy, go figure. They had no clue about the all-nighters or the sheer amount of digital sticky tape I used. That thing was barely holding together.
So, can you run Gatsby on a ‘Ross’? Yeah, I guess. But it’s a fight every step of the way. Makes you wonder why you bother sometimes. Next time a client says ‘Ross’, I’m either running for the hills or adding a massive ‘Ross tax’ to the bill. Life’s just too short for that kinda pain, you know?
