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Asked: 2026-05-27T01:16:03+00:00

Several months ago, I installed ruby 1.9.1 on Mac OSX 10.6 using the instructions

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Several months ago, I installed ruby 1.9.1 on Mac OSX 10.6 using the instructions here, modified for the newer versions of ruby/rails/gem.

http://hivelogic.com/articles/compiling-ruby-rubygems-and-rails-on-snow-leopard/

A project has now come up where I need to develop a site using an older version of rails, and consequently, an older version of Ruby. I’ve successfully installed RVM, older versions of gem and the rails gems, but now I’m mildly worried about my environment. Technically, I have 3 groups of Ruby installs floating around – the native 1.8.7 that was included with OSX 10.6, my own 1.9.1 installed in /usr/local/, and 1.8.7 in RVM.

I’m concerned that this could cause strange, difficult to diagnose errors in the long run. Would it be worth the trouble of uninstalling my 1.9.1 /usr/local and/or the baked-in 1.8.7, and installing them in RVM?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    All the Rubies you use for development should be under rvm (or rbenv, as John comments). It avoids the headaches you describe–nothing more exciting than having a surprising library pulled in.

    While I have removed the system Ruby on some OS X machines and not been affected by it, the Tin Man’s point about not removing it outright seems reasonable, and rvm makes it unnecessary to do so. Some tools, like brew, rely on having a Ruby available; if you do remove it, you’ll need to make sure that everything the system Ruby had is still available to prevent breakage.

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