How to Install Ruby 2.7 & Rails 6 on Ubuntu 20.04

In this tutorial, we'll see how we can install the latest version of Ruby v2. 7on Ubuntu 20.04 Disco Dingo. and next we'll see how to set up a development environment for Ruby on Rails 6.

As of this writing, the current stable version of Ruby is v2.7.1.

How to Install Ruby 2.7 on Ubuntu 20.04?

You can install Ruby 2.7 on Ubuntu 20.04 using three different methods:

• Using rbenv
• Using RVM or Ruby Version Manager
• From the source

So let's use rbenv.

Installing Ruby 2.7 with rbenv

You first need to install rbenv and then use it to install Ruby v2.7.

Open your terminal and run the following command:

$ git clone https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv.git ~/.rbenv

We simply clone rbenv GitHub repository into the ~/.rbenv folder.

You need to have Git installed on your system. If not, simply run sudo apt install git from your command line.

Next, run the following commands to set up rbenv:

$ echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
$ echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >> ~/.bashrc
$ exec $SHELL

Next, you need to download the ruby-build plugin into the plugins folder of rbenv as follows:

$ git clone https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build.git "$(rbenv root)"/plugins/ruby-build

The ruby-build plugin adds the install command to rbenv.

Note: You can also install rbenv and ruby-build using the sudo apt-get install rbenv ruby-build command.

Finally, you can install Ruby 2.7.1 using the following command:

$ rbenv install 2.7.1
$ rbenv global 2.7.1

This is the output in the terminal:

Downloading ruby-2.7.1.tar.bz2...
-> https://cache.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/2.7/ruby-2.7.1.tar.bz2
Installing ruby-2.7.1...
Installed ruby-2.7.1 to /home/<user_name>/.rbenv/versions/2.7.1

If your installation fails, make sure you install the libreadline-dev and zlib1g-dev dependencies:

$ sudo apt-get install -y libreadline-dev zlib1g-dev

You can check out your Ruby version using the following command:

$ ruby -v

Next, you need to install bundler with gem:

$ gem install bundler

This will install bundler v2.0.2.

After installing bundler, you need to run:

$ rbenv rehash

Installing Ruby on Rails 6 on Ubuntu 20.04

After installing Ruby 2.7, let's now see how we can install Ruby on Rails 6.

As of this writing, Rails 6 is released. Let's see how to install it. Open a new terminal and run the following command:

$ gem install rails -v 6.0.0

Next, run the following command to make the rails executable available:

$ rbenv rehash

That's it! You can verify your installed Rails version by running the following command:

$ rails -v
# Rails 6.0.0

Congratulations! You have set up your development environment for Ruby on Rails 6 development on your Ubuntu 20.04 machine.

• Date: 02 May 2020