I installed the Heroku Toolbelt the other day, and it looks like Ruby was a requirement, so the package manager installed it for me. But I was planning to install Ruby through RVM. Will the two Rubys conflict?
2 Answers
RVM allows you to install multiple versions of rubies and manage switching between them without the risk of conflicts between them.
To use any rvm build ruby:
rvm use 1.9.3
For getting back to system installed ruby:
rvm use system
This is equivalent to rvm reset
which means - stop using any rvm installed ruby.
You can also tell rvm to "mount" system ruby, which will allow you creating gemsets with it:
rvm automount # OR:
rvm mount /path/to/ruby
Whenever you install something outside of your package manager (apt) there is the potential for problems. The most common problem would be overwriting a system library used by other applications causing conflicts or breakage. Alternately , libs used by Ruby could be over written when you update a program via apt-get.
There is a nice discussion on the advantages / disadvantages of a package manager here:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Package_management_system
In general, use apt (apt-get) if at all possible. If there is a problem with the package in Ubuntu, report a bug, use a ppa, etc.
If all else fails, I advise you compile from source manually and watch for conflicts.