Can I install the Ruby Version Manager?

Question

Can I install the Ruby Version Manager (RVM) on my Raspberry Pi?

Answer 1

Yes!

First, you'll need to install curl, git, and build-essentials for your operating system. If you don't know how to install software for your system please refer to How do I install new software?.

Next you need to download and run the bash script they provide.

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

Next you can do one of two things.

1. Close and reopen your terminal session, or

2. Source the rvm script like so.

    $ source ~/.rvm/scripts/rvm
   

Now you can check if RVM is installed by running the following command.

$ type rvm | head -n 1
rvm is a function

If you get a response like the above one RVM has been loaded and you can install a specific Ruby version. It is recommended that you install the latest stable release; which is Ruby 1.9.3 as of July 11, 2012.

$ rvm install 1.9.3

Now the final the step is to tell RVM which version to use. In order to use a specific Ruby version for the duration of the current terminal session run the following.

$ rvm use 1.9.3

If you want to use that specific version every time you open a new terminal session though you are going to have to tell RVM to set it as the default Ruby. Like so.

$ rvm use --default 1.9.3

Congratulations, you have successfully installed RVM on your Raspberry Pi!

Note build-essential is Debian's group for gcc, g++, make etc. Arch includes a similar group called base-devel.