UPDATE

acts_as_searchable is no longer maintained, please switch over to the new and healthy world of search_do bug-free, clear structure and paginating!

Too many crappy tutorials around, with wrong or only partial information of how to get started. Took me almost 2 hours to get it working, so here comes a short How To/Summary for future reference.

1. sudo apt-get install hyperestraier
2. sudo nano /etc/default/hyperestraier (change NO_START from 1 to 0) -> autostart on boot
3. sudo /etc/init.d/hyperestraier start
4. http://localhost:1978/ -> admin/admin -> create new nodes (xx_test/xx_development/xx_production)
5. script/plugin install http://github.com/grosser/search_do
6. add to database.yml (once for every environment):

   estraier:
     host: localhost
     user: admin
     password: admin
     port: 1978
     node: xx_development

7. >ModelName<.rb: acts_as_searchable :searchable_fields=>[:descr,:title] details
8. Add all current models to the fulltext search:
   script/console
   >ModelName<.reindex!
9. Check back in the corresponding node @ http://localhost:1978/ to see if documents have been created
10. play around with >ModelName<.fulltext_search

Hope this helps 🙂

more detailed help