Installs Ruby, JRuby, Rubinius, MagLev or mruby.

• Supports installing arbitrary versions.
• Supports downloading the latest versions and checksums from ruby-versions.
• Supports installing into /opt/rubies/ for root and ~/.rubies/ for users by default.
• Supports installing into arbitrary directories.
• Supports downloading from arbitrary URLs.
• Supports downloading from mirrors.
• Supports downloading/applying patches.
• Supports specifying arbitrary ./configure options.
• Supports downloading archives using wget or curl.
• Supports verifying downloaded archives using md5sum, md5 or openssl md5.
• Supports installing build dependencies via the package manager:
  • apt
  • dnf
  • yum
  • pacman
  • macports
  • brew
• Has tests.

• Does not require updating every time a new Ruby version comes out.
• Does not require recipes for each individual Ruby version or configuration.
• Does not support installing trunk/HEAD.

• bash >= 3.x
• wget > 1.12 or curl
• md5sum, md5 or openssl md5.
• tar
• bzip2
• patch (if --patch is specified)
• gcc >= 4.2 or clang

List supported Rubies and their major versions:

$ ruby-install

List the latest versions:

$ ruby-install --latest

Install the current stable version of Ruby:

$ ruby-install ruby

Install the latest version of Ruby:

$ ruby-install --latest ruby

Install a stable version of Ruby:

$ ruby-install ruby 2.3

Install a specific version of Ruby:

$ ruby-install ruby 2.2.4

Install a Ruby into a specific directory:

$ ruby-install --install-dir /path/to/dir ruby

Install a Ruby into a specific rubies directory:

$ ruby-install --rubies-dir /path/to/rubies/ ruby

Install a Ruby into /usr/local:

$ ruby-install --system ruby 2.3.0

Install a Ruby from an official site with directly download:

$ ruby-install -M https://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby ruby 2.3.0

Install a Ruby from a mirror:

$ ruby-install -M http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby ruby 2.0.0-p645

Install a Ruby with a specific patch:

$ ruby-install -p https://raw.github.com/gist/4136373/falcon-gc.diff ruby 1.9.3-p551

Install a Ruby with a specific C compiler:

$ ruby-install ruby 2.3.0 -- CC=gcc-4.9

Install a Ruby with specific configuration:

$ ruby-install ruby 2.3.0 -- --enable-shared --enable-dtrace CFLAGS="-O3"

Uninstall a Ruby version:

$ rm -rf ~/.rubies/ruby-2.3.0

Using ruby-install with RVM:

$ ruby-install --rubies-dir ~/.rvm/rubies ruby 2.3.0

Using ruby-install with rbenv:

$ ruby-install --install-dir ~/.rbenv/versions/2.3.0 ruby 2.3.0

ruby-install can even be used with Chef.

wget -O ruby-install-0.6.0.tar.gz https://github.com/postmodern/ruby-install/archive/v0.6.0.tar.gz
tar -xzvf ruby-install-0.6.0.tar.gz
cd ruby-install-0.6.0/
sudo make install

All releases are PGP signed for security. Instructions on how to import my PGP key can be found on my blog. To verify that a release was not tampered with:

wget https://raw.github.com/postmodern/ruby-install/master/pkg/ruby-install-0.6.0.tar.gz.asc
gpg --verify ruby-install-0.6.0.tar.gz.asc ruby-install-0.6.0.tar.gz

ruby-install can also be installed with homebrew:

brew install ruby-install

Or the absolute latest ruby-install can be installed from source:

brew install ruby-install --HEAD

ruby-install is already included in the AUR:

yaourt -S ruby-install

There is a FreeBSD port of ruby-install which can be copied into the local ports tree.

Rubies older than 1.9.3-p429 will not compile with Clang and require GCC >= 4.2. Normally, Linux and BSD systems will already have GCC installed. OS X users can install GCC via homebrew:

brew tap homebrew/versions
brew install gcc49

And run ruby-install again:

ruby-install ruby 2.3.0 -- CC=gcc-4.9

Rubinius 1.x and 2.0.x is not supported due to multiple bugs. Instead, please use Rubinius >= 2.1.x.

• RVM
• ruby-build

I like the approach you're taking. Curious to see how it plays out.

-- Sam Stephenson of rbenv