How do I install the latest version of ruby in Ubuntu?

Question

I currently have ruby version 1.8.2 in my machine and I would like to upgrade it to 1.9.2. How am i supposed to do it?

Answer 1

I use Ubuntu, and I've found the easiest way to install newer versions of Ruby is to use rvm.

The instructions are here: https://rvm.io/rvm/install/

Basically, it installs different versions of Ruby locally for the user and updates environment variables for Ruby and gems based on which version you decide to use.

It's this easy:

jim@schubert:~$ rvm use system
Now using system ruby.
jim@schubert:~$ ruby -v
ruby 1.8.7 (2010-08-16 patchlevel 302) [x86_64-linux]
jim@schubert:~$ gem -v
1.3.7
jim@schubert:~$ rvm use 1.9.2
Using /home/jim/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p180
jim@schubert:~$ ruby -v
ruby 1.9.2p180 (2011-02-18 revision 30909) [x86_64-linux]
jim@schubert:~$ gem -v
1.5.2
jim@schubert:~$ 

Answer 2

I don't like having RVM on production server, so I usually install ruby from source with an install script like this:

#!/bin/bash

tmp_dir="/tmp"
version="2.2.3"
minor_version="2.2"
ruby_version="ruby-$version"

echo "*******************"
echo "* Installing Ruby *"
echo "*******************"

sudo apt-get install -y autoconf build-essential libreadline-dev libssl-dev libyaml-dev zlib1g-dev libffi-dev

mkdir -p "$tmp_dir"
cd "$tmp_dir"

wget "http://cache.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/$minor_version/$ruby_version.tar.gz"
tar -xvzf $ruby_version.tar.gz
cd $ruby_version

./configure --disable-install-doc
make --jobs `nproc`
sudo make install

cd ..
rm $ruby_version.tar.gz
rm -rf $ruby_version

echo "*******************"
echo "* Ruby installed! *"
echo "*******************"