Why can't I set the default Ruby version in Ubuntu?

Question

I'm trying to set my Ruby version to be 1.9.2, but I can't change it from the system Ruby installation. What am I doing wrong?

My terminal output is:

$ rvm list

rvm rubies

=> ruby-1.9.2-p180 [ i386 ]

$ rvm use default
Using /usr/share/ruby-rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p180
$ ruby -v
ruby 1.8.7 (2011-06-30 patchlevel 352) [i686-linux]

Answer 1

Normally under Ubuntu you need to do:

sudo update-alternatives --config ruby

That will allow you to set the default to any available version of ruby installed on your system. This is easily installed from repositories.

Answer 2

I would avoid setting particular version to default, better to use .rvmrc files with gemset and ruby version per project.

RVM way should be:

rvm 1.9.2-p180 --default
rvm use default

Also, I guess you might better to switch to 1.9.3. It is quite easy to do with rvm:

rvm install 1.9.3

• RVM way will allow you to follow same approach on different platforms (Mac for example)