Installing RVM and creating Gemsets can be difficult at times. Frown not because in this tutorial we will learn the basics of installing RVM and in part 2 of the tutorial we will be creating Gemsets.

Quick Revision

RVM helps to manage multiple versions of Ruby on non Windows Environment.

Coming back to the tutorial we need to install RVM

Fire up the terminal or console and key in the following command

\curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io | bash

Note - There is a backslash before curl. This prevents misconfiguration if you have aliased it with configuration in your ~/.curlrc file.

Be sure to follow any subsequent instructions as guided by the installation process.

If successfully installed execute the following command to check if RVM is working or not

rvm notes

It shows system specific notes.

In RVM jargon Rubies are essentially Ruby versions

Now to install Ruby 1.9.3

rvm install 1.9.3

This command will install Ruby 1.9.3. To switch to this ruby version use

rvm 1.9.3

To check the ruby version

ruby -v 

This will show you the current ruby in use which will be off course the one we just installed i.e. Ruby 1.9.3 To set this as default

rvm --default 1.9.3

Now let's install another version of Ruby

rvm install 1.8.7

This will install Ruby version 1.8.7. You are now up and running with two Rubies!

To switch between Ruby version simply use

To switch to Ruby version 1.8.7

rvm 1.8.7

To switch to Ruby version 1.9.3

rvm 1.9.3

In the next tutorial we will learn how to create gemsets to enable seamless integration of various gems for same version of ruby and rails.