Vagrant is a tool to build and manage virtual machines for developers. It has a getting started on Ubuntu guide that contains iffy-looking suggestions like
$ sudo ln -s /usr/bin/ruby1.8 /usr/bin/ruby # wtf???
or installing RubyGems from source rather than from Ubuntu packages, and then using gem install
to install vagrant itself.
I'm not feeling comfortable just following those instructions. Is there perhaps a PPA? Are there, perhaps, alternative tools that are packaged for Ubuntu?