How to update ruby on linux (ubuntu)?

Question

I'm newbie on both ruby and linux, so I'm sure this is trivial but I don't know yet. I currently have ruby 1.8.7 installed and I want to update it to ruby 1.9. How can I do that?

Answer 1

sudo apt-get install ruby1.9 

should do the trick.

You can find what libraries are available to install by

apt-cache search <your search term> 

So I just did apt-cache search ruby | grep 9 to find it.

You'll probably need to invoke the new Ruby as ruby1.9, because Ubuntu will probably default to 1.8 if you just type ruby.

Answer 2

There's really no reason to remove ruby1-8, unless someone else knows better. Execute the commands below to install 1.9 and then link ruby to point to the new version.

sudo apt-get install ruby1-9 rubygems1-9 sudo ln -sf /usr/bin/ruby1-9 /usr/bin/ruby