How to Install Ruby 2.1.8 on CentOS & RHEL using RVM

Ruby is a dynamic, object-oriented programming language.We are using RVM, which stands for Ruby Version Manager, which makes easier to install Ruby on Linux platform. RVM is also helpful for managing multiple version of Ruby without conflicting, and we can switch system to any version of Ruby using a single command.

This article will helps you to How to Install Ruby 2.1.8 on CentOS, RedHat Systems using RVM. To install other releases of Ruby use following links

Previous stable: Ruby 2.0.0
Old stable: Ruby 1.9.3

Step 1: Install Required Packages

Firstly we need to install all required packages for ruby installation on our system using following command.

# yum install gcc-c++ patch readline readline-devel zlib zlib-devel
# yum install libyaml-devel libffi-devel openssl-devel make
# yum install bzip2 autoconf automake libtool bison iconv-devel sqlite-devel

Step 2: Install RVM

Install latest stable version of RVM on your system using following command. This command will automatically download all required files and install on your system.

# curl -L get.rvm.io | bash -s stable

Step 3: Setup RVM Environment

RVM provides a shell script to setup system environment before installing Ruby. Use below command to setup rvm environment.

# source /etc/profile.d/rvm.sh

Step 4: Install Ruby

After completing setup of RVM environment, lets install Ruby language using following command.

# rvm install 2.1.8

[Sample Output]

Searching for binary rubies, this might take some time.
No binary rubies available for: centos/7/x86_64/ruby-2.1.8.
Continuing with compilation. Please read 'rvm help mount' to get more information on binary rubies.
Checking requirements for centos.
Requirements installation successful.
Installing Ruby from source to: /usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-2.1.8, this may take a while depending on your cpu(s)...
ruby-2.1.8 - #downloading ruby-2.1.8, this may take a while depending on your connection...
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100 11.4M  100 11.4M    0     0  33.5M      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 33.6M
No checksum for downloaded archive, recording checksum in user configuration.
ruby-2.1.8 - #extracting ruby-2.1.8 to /usr/local/rvm/src/ruby-2.1.8....
ruby-2.1.8 - #configuring.....................................................
ruby-2.1.8 - #post-configuration..
ruby-2.1.8 - #compiling.........................................................................................................
ruby-2.1.8 - #installing.................................
ruby-2.1.8 - #making binaries executable..
ruby-2.1.8 - #downloading rubygems-2.4.8
ruby-2.1.8 - #extracting rubygems-2.4.8.....
ruby-2.1.8 - #removing old rubygems.........
ruby-2.1.8 - #installing rubygems-2.4.8......................
ruby-2.1.8 - #gemset created [email protected]
ruby-2.1.8 - #importing gemset /usr/local/rvm/gemsets/global.gems...............................................
ruby-2.1.8 - #generating global wrappers........
ruby-2.1.8 - #gemset created /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.1.8
ruby-2.1.8 - #importing gemsetfile /usr/local/rvm/gemsets/default.gems evaluated to empty gem list
ruby-2.1.8 - #generating default wrappers........
ruby-2.1.8 - #adjusting #shebangs for (gem irb erb ri rdoc testrb rake).
Install of ruby-2.1.8 - #complete
Ruby was built without documentation, to build it run: rvm docs generate-ri

Step 5: Setup Default Ruby Version

Use rvm command to setup default ruby version to be used by applications.

# rvm use 2.1.8 --default

Using /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.1.8

Step 6: Check Current Ruby Version.

Using following command you can check the current ruby version is used.

# ruby --version

ruby 2.1.8p440 (2015-12-16 revision 53160) [x86_64-linux]

Congratulation’s you have successfully install Ruby on your system. Read our next article to integrate Ruby with Apache web server with easy steps.

References:
1. http://rvm.io/rubies/installing