Mod_rails make: command not found

Question

I install mod_rails on a Debian server, but somehow something is screwed (it's not me: P).

gem install passenger
Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing passenger:
 ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

/usr/bin/ruby1.8 extconf.rb
creating Makefile

make
sh: make: command not found

Gem files will remain installed in /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastthread-1.0.7 for inspection.
Results logged to /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastthread-1.0.7/ext/fastthread/gem_make.out

gem installed:

gem -v
1.3.5

ruby is also excellent:

ruby -v
ruby 1.8.7 (2008-08-11 patchlevel 72) [i486-linux]

Answer 1

apt-get install build-essential zlib1g-dev libssl-dev libreadline5-dev

That should be all you need to get the passenger to build.

Answer 2

Are you sure you have make, gcc et al?

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential

Does "something" indicate anything?