How to Install Ruby on Debian 9

This tutorial will walk you through the steps of installing Ruby on a Debian 9 system. Ruby is one of the most popular languages today. It has an elegant syntax and it is the language behind the powerful Ruby on Rails framework.

There are several different ways of installing Ruby on Debian. In the following sections, we will show how to install Ruby using the Rbenv and RVM script and from the default Debian repositories.

Prerequisites #

Before starting with the tutorial, make sure you are logged in as a user with sudo privileges .

Method 1: Install Ruby from Debian Repositories #

The easiest way to install Ruby on your Debian system is through the apt package manager. At the time of writing, the version included in the Debian repositories is 2.3.3 which will EOL soon.

1. First, refresh the packages list with:

   Terminal

   sudo apt update

2. Install the ruby-full package by running the following command:

   Terminal

   sudo apt install ruby-full

3. Once the installation is completed, you can verify that it was successful by printing the Ruby version:

   Terminal

   ruby --version

   The output will look something like this:

   output

   ruby 2.3.3p222 (2016-11-21) [x86_64-linux-gnu]

Method 2: Install Ruby using Rbenv #

Rbenv is a lightweight Ruby version management tool which allows you to easily switch Ruby versions.

By default Rbenv doesn’t handle installing Ruby versions. ruby-build is a tool that helps you to install any version of Ruby you may need. It is available as a standalone program and as a plugin for rbenv.

1. Install the dependencies required for the ruby-build tool to build Ruby from source:

   Terminal

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install git curl libssl-dev libreadline-dev zlib1g-dev autoconf bison build-essential libyaml-dev libreadline-dev libncurses5-dev libffi-dev libgdbm-dev

2. Next, run the following curl command to install both rbenv and ruby-build scripts:

   Terminal

   curl -sL https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv-installer/raw/main/bin/rbenv-installer | bash -

   On successful installation, the script will print something like this:

   

3. Before starting using rbenv we need to add $HOME/.rbenv/bin to our PATH .

   If you are using Bash, type:

   Terminal

   echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
   echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >> ~/.bashrc
   source ~/.bashrc

   If you are using Zsh type:

   Terminal

   echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
   echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >> ~/.zshrc
   source ~/.zshrc

4. Now that rbenv is installed on our system we can easily install the latest stable version of Ruby and set it as default version with:

   Terminal

   rbenv install 2.5.1
   rbenv global 2.5.1

   Verify that Ruby was properly installed by printing the version number:

   Terminal

   ruby -v

   output

   ruby 2.5.1p57 (2018-03-29 revision 63029) [x86_64-linux]

Method 3: Install Ruby using RVM #

RVM is another tool for installing, managing and working with multiple Ruby environments.

1. First install the dependencies required for the RVM utility to build Ruby from source:

   Terminal

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install curl g++ gcc autoconf automake bison libc6-dev libffi-dev libgdbm-dev libncurses5-dev libsqlite3-dev libtool libyaml-dev make pkg-config sqlite3 zlib1g-dev libgmp-dev libreadline-dev libssl-dev

2. Next, run the following commands to add the GPG key and install RVM:

   Terminal

   gpg --keyserver hkp://keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys 409B6B1796C275462A1703113804BB82D39DC0E3 7D2BAF1CF37B13E2069D6956105BD0E739499BDB
   curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable

   On successful installation, the script will print something like this:

   

3. To start using RVM you need to run the following command:

   Terminal

   source ~/.rvm/scripts/rvm

4. Install the latest stable version of Ruby with RVM and set it as the default version with:

   Terminal

   rvm install ruby
   rvm --default use ruby

   Verify that Ruby was properly installed by printing the version number:

   Terminal

   ruby -v

   output

   ruby 2.5.1p57 (2018-03-29 revision 63029) [x86_64-linux]

For more information about how to manage your Ruby installations visit the RVM Documentation page .

Conclusion #

We have shown you three different ways to install Ruby on your Debian 9 server. The method you choose depends on your requirements and preferences. Even though installing the packaged version from the Debian repository is easier, the Rbenv and RVM methods give you more flexibility for adding and removing different Ruby versions on a per user basis.

If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to comment below.

About the authors

Dejan Panovski

Dejan Panovski is the founder of Linuxize, an RHCSA-certified Linux system administrator and DevOps engineer based in Skopje, Macedonia. Author of 800+ Linux tutorials with 20+ years of experience turning complex Linux tasks into clear, reliable guides.

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