rbenv
Rbenv is a great Linux tool for managing Ruby environments. A counterpart in Python might be Anaconda. Rbenv uses ruby-build to install Ruby. Using Rbenv, we can install a specific version of Ruby:
rbenv install -v 2.6.6
rbenv global 2.6.6
Rbenv uses shims - bash programs which route the commands to the correct Ruby installation. That way, we can have and use multiple Ruby installations on the same machine.
Rbenv Setup
Install rbenv
sudo apt update
sudo apt install rbenv
# may not need these packages
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
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
Notice the last three lines. We add .rbenv/bin to the PATH, using ~/.bashrc. We also add a command to initialize rbenv. When you open a terminal, the contents of the ~/.bashrc are executed, and now rbenv will initialize when we open a terminal.
Commands
Check Ruby version
ruby -v