July 13, 2012 · Ubuntu Ruby Rvm

Bootstrapping RVM on Ubuntu

Generally speaking the packaged /rubygems for most linux distros lead to more problems than they solve.  In order to gain a stable and consistent ruby platform within development teams across multiple machines & platforms I find that (Ruby Version Manager) is an excellent solution.  In a nutshell it allows a user to cleanly and simply manage both ruby interpreters and isolate gem collections () between projects on a single box.

Please note these instructions work for my based dev environment and needs.  Full rvm installation instructions can be found .  A shorter bootstrap suggestion can be located at the bottom of that page.

While I highly recommend RVM for development environments I would not recommend it's use in production due to a rapid release cycle culture, some of which, historically have had issues.  If you don't require multiple ruby environments on your production system why add the overhead and external risk?

sudo apt-get install build-essential openssl libreadline6 libreadline6-dev curl git-core zlib1g zlib1g-dev libssl-dev libyaml-dev libsqlite3-dev sqlite3 libxml2-dev libxslt-dev autoconf libc6-dev ncurses-dev automake libtool bison subversion curl g++ openjdk-6-jre-headless ant openjdk-6-jdk 

curl -L https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable --ruby 

source /home/singram/.rvm/scripts/rvm  
rvm install ruby-1.9.3-p194 --with-openssl-dir=/usr/local --default  
rvm install jruby  
rvm list known  

Useful commands to debug installation issues

rvm notes  

here