How To Install Ruby on Ubuntu, Debian and LinuxMint using RVM

Ruby is popular programming language among a large number of developers. Rails are the framework to run ruby language. Ruby language was created by Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto and first published in 1995. This article will help you to install ruby on rails on Ubuntu, Debian and Linuxmint operating systems using RVM. RVM is the Ruby Version Manager helps for installing and managing Ruby language on systems.

Step 1 – Install RVM

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

Install CURL

apt-get install curl

Install RVM

Before installing RVM first we need to import public key in our system then use curl to install rvm in our system.

curl -sSL https://rvm.io/mpapis.asc | sudo gpg2 --import -
curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io | sudo bash -s stable

After installing RVM first we need to set up rvm environment using below command. so that current shell takes new environment settings.

source /etc/profile.d/rvm.sh

Install Ruby Dependencies

Install all the dependencies for installing Ruby automatically on the system. Run below command on terminal.

rvm requirements

Step 2 – List Available Ruby Versions

Get a list of available versions of Ruby language. You can install any version of your choice or requirements showing on the list.

rvm list known

[ruby-]1.8.6[-p420]
[ruby-]1.8.7[-head] # security released on head
[ruby-]1.9.1[-p431]
[ruby-]1.9.2[-p330]
[ruby-]1.9.3[-p551]
[ruby-]2.0.0[-p648]
[ruby-]2.1[.10]
[ruby-]2.2[.7]
[ruby-]2.3[.4]
[ruby-]2.4[.1]
ruby-head

Step 3 – Install Ruby Version

RVM is useful for installation of multiple Ruby versions on the single system. Use the following command to install required Ruby on your system. As shown below example will install Ruby 2.4.1 on your system.

rvm install 2.4.1

[Sample Output]

Searching for binary rubies, this might take some time.
Found remote file https://rvm_io.global.ssl.fastly.net/binaries/ubuntu/16.04/x86_64/ruby-2.4.1.tar.bz2
Checking requirements for ubuntu.
Requirements installation successful.
ruby-2.4.1 - #configure
ruby-2.4.1 - #download
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100 16.4M  100 16.4M    0     0  45285      0  0:06:20  0:06:20 --:--:-- 38499
ruby-2.4.1 - #validate archive
ruby-2.4.1 - #extract
ruby-2.4.1 - #validate binary
ruby-2.4.1 - #setup
ruby-2.4.1 - #gemset created /usr/local/rvm/gems/[email protected]
ruby-2.4.1 - #importing gemset /usr/local/rvm/gemsets/global.gems...................................
ruby-2.4.1 - #generating global wrappers........
ruby-2.4.1 - #gemset created /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.4.1
ruby-2.4.1 - #importing gemsetfile /usr/local/rvm/gemsets/default.gems evaluated to empty gem list
ruby-2.4.1 - #generating default wrappers........

Step 4 – Setup Default Ruby Version

Use rvm command to set up default ruby version to be used by applications. You can install multiple versions as defined in above step. Now select which version you want to use.

rvm use 2.4.1 --default 

Using /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.4.1

Step 5 – Check Ruby Version

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

ruby --version

ruby 2.4.1p111 (2017-03-22 revision 58053) [x86_64-linux]

Step 6 – Install Rails

You can install the latest stable release version of Rails by running the following command. It will install Rails in global gemset, So that all applications share the same version of Rails.

gem install rails
rails -v

Or we can get a specific version of Rails by defining –version during installation. Visit here to get available rails versions.

gem install rails --version=5.1.4

Congratulation’s, You have successfully installed Ruby on your system. Read our next articles to deploy Ruby with Apache or Ruby with Nginx web server with simple steps.