I have executed the commands as prescribed in the instructions at the rvm website but things don\'t seem to work..
Fetching the code from the git repository runs smoothl
Ack, I didn't mean to post this as a comment on the question. Anyway, if I had to guess, I'd say you installed rvm using sudo or as root. If that is the case, remove it and reinstall without sudo:
sudo rm -rf $HOME/.rvm $HOME/.rvmrc /etc/rvmrc /etc/profile.d/rvm.sh \
/usr/local/rvm /usr/local/bin/rvm
sudo /usr/sbin/groupdel rvm # this might fail, it's not that important
Open new terminal window/tab and make sure rvm is removed:
env | grep rvm
The output should be empty, sometimes it's needed to relogin, after it's empty you can continue:
curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable
It works perfectly fine installed for the local user.