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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-19T13:01:15+00:00

I’ve installed rvm as a way of making sure that my local development version

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I’ve installed rvm as a way of making sure that my local development version of ruby is the same as my server’s for a particular app i work on (ruby 1.8.7). I’ve done this, and installed ruby 1.8.7 ok. However, when i try to start the rails console i get this error:

Readline was unable to be required, if you need completion or history install readline then reinstall the ruby.
You may follow 'rvm notes' for dependencies and/or read the docs page http://rvm.beginrescueend.com/packages/readline/ . Be sure you 'rvm remove X ; rvm install X' to re-compile your ruby with readline support after obtaining the readline libraries.
Couldn't load Wirble: no such file to load -- wirble

I’ve read the notes on the page that error refers to (http://rvm.beginrescueend.com/packages/readline/), and followed the instructions, which involve basically installing readline, uninstalling ruby 1.8.7, then installing ruby 1.8.7 again with readline support. (actually that page uses ruby 1.9.2 as an example but i’m assuming it should work with 1.8.7 as well. Perhaps that’s not the case).

But, i still get the same error. Has anyone else been through this and figured it out?
Grateful for any advice – max

EDIT – i’m using Ubuntu 9.10 btw in case that’s relevant.

EDIT – here’s my output for rvm info as asked for below:

$ rvm info

system:

  system:
    uname:       "Linux max-laptop 2.6.31-22-generic #68-Ubuntu SMP Tue Oct 26 16:38:35 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux"
    bash:        "/bin/bash => GNU bash, version 4.0.33(1)-release (i486-pc-linux-gnu)"
    zsh:         " => not installed"

  rvm:
    version:      "rvm 1.1.6 by Wayne E. Seguin (wayneeseguin@gmail.com) [http://rvm.beginrescueend.com/]"

  homes:
    gem:          "not set"
    ruby:         "not set"

  binaries:
    ruby:         "/usr/bin/ruby"
    irb:          "/usr/bin/irb"
    gem:          "/usr/bin/gem"
    rake:         "/usr/bin/rake"

  environment:
    PATH:         "/home/max/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/var/lib/gems/1.8/bin:/home/max/software/svnmerge:/home/max/.gem/ruby/1.8/bin:/home/max/work/e_learning_resource/trunk/public/assets/dvd_files/bin:/opt/firefox:/home/max/.rvm/bin:/home/max/.rvm/bin"
    GEM_HOME:     ""
    GEM_PATH:     ""
    MY_RUBY_HOME: ""
    IRBRC:        ""
    RUBYOPT:      ""
    gemset:       ""
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I had a similar problem it was with 1.9.2 on Ubuntu 10.04, but the symptoms were identical. In order to get it to work:

    rvm pkg install readline

    or prior to RVM version 1.6.32, you need the following command

    rvm package install readline

    Then:

    apt-get install ncurses-dev

    And then taking from their instructions at http://rvm.beginrescueend.com/packages/readline/

    cd $HOME/.rvm/src/ruby-1.9.2-p0/ext/readline
ruby extconf.rb -- --with-readline-dir="$HOME/.rvm/usr"
make install

    I had actually done a system rvm install on the server, so I needed to do this:

    cd $HOME/.rvm/src/ruby-1.9.2-p0/ext/readline
ruby extconf.rb -- --with-readline-dir="/usr/local/rvm/usr"
make install

    After that I was able to have full access to the console.

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