How do I make Ruby 1.9 the default Ruby on Ubuntu?

Question

Is there any way, on Ubuntu 9.04, to install Ruby 1.8 as ruby1.8 (or get rid of it altogether) and have Ruby 1.9 be the default ruby?

Answer 1

sudo \curl -L https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable --ruby --rails

will install an up-to-date version of ruby (and rails), and allow you to avoid brokenness of Ubuntu's RVM, see https://stackoverflow.com/a/9056395/497756.

If you go this route, get rid of Ubuntu-installed versions and associated packages like bundle.

Details here: https://rvm.io/rvm/install/

(Note: this is the TL;DR version of the post by henry74.)