Rvm Ruby 1.9.1 Install Can't Locate Zlib But Its Runtime and Dev Library Are There

rvm, zlib and ruby not working even after following instructions

please use the "quick fix" from here https://rvm.io/packages/zlib/

you have to ignore the rest of instructions, they are intended for systems that do not support packages (like osx)

Not able to run gem command and build ruby with zlib support

RVM causes more problems than it solves (IMHO). Better tools are ruby-build and rb-env. Newer tools that look very good too are ruby-install and chruby.

Here are my notes from my recent Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) installation of Ruby, which I believe is pretty similar to Fedora. Perhaps these notes can be of some help to you. Ask me questions if you like.

Install zlib

yum install zlib zlib-devel

Install YAML

export k=yaml v=0.1.4
wget http://pyyaml.org/download/libyaml/$k-$v.tar.gz
tar zxvf $k-$v.tar.gz
cd $k-$v 

./configure
make && make install

Install X11 if you want X or headless browsing for testing

yum install 
  xorg-x11-fonts-misc
  xorg-x11-fonts-truetype
  xorg-x11-server-Xorg
  xorg-x11-server-Xvfb

Install libraries

yum install 
  gdbm gdbm-devel
  ncurses ncurses-devel
  openssl openssl-devel
  readline readline-devel
  tk tk-devel
  libjpeg libjpeg-devel
  libpng libpng-devel
  libxml2 libxml2-devel
  libxslt libxslt-devel
  zlib zlib-devel

Install ruby-build

cd /opt
git clone git://github.com/sstephenson/ruby-build.git
cd ruby-build/
./install.sh

Install Ruby

export k=ruby v=1.9.3-p125
wget http://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/1.9/$k-$v.tar.gz
tar zxvf $k-$v.tar.gz
cd $k-$v

# Either onfigure with defaults...
./configure 

# Or configure with custom locations...
./configure --prefix=/opt/$k/$v --enable-shared --with-opt-dir=/opt/yaml/current

make && make check && make install

Environment

Edit /etc/environment to add this:

RUBYOPT='-r rubygems -r psych'

If you put Ruby in a custom directory, also merge this with your existing path:

PATH=/opt/ruby/1.9.3-p125/bin  (or wherever you put it)

Load environment:

source /etc/environment

Verify gem runs and you see the intial set of gems:

gem list

Gem update:

gem update --system

cannot load such file -- zlib even after using rvm pkg install zlib

I ended up installing zlib from apt-get and then reinstalling ruby to not use the rvm directory for zlib.

Here's how do:

$ sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev
$ rvm reinstall 1.9.3

[Edit] As commenter @chrisfinne mentions, on CentOS/RedHat based systems:

$ sudo yum install zlib-devel
$ rvm reinstall 1.9.3

Ubuntu rails install fails on zlib

If you come across this question trying to install Ruby using Ruby Version Manager (RVM) on Ubuntu 10.04 then there are instructions on installing zlib on the rvm web site http://rvm.beginrescueend.com/packages/zlib/

The steps are:

rvm pkg install zlib

(or rvm package install zlib if you get "ERROR: Unrecognized command line argument: 'pkg'" - older versions of rvm used the verb 'package' instead)

then

rvm remove 1.9.1
rvm install 1.9.1

Issue in install rvm on ubuntu

One library is missing. Try executing this first:

sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev

EDIT:

In the rvm webpage there's a section about this issue https://rvm.io/packages/zlib/

EDIT(mpapis):

The installer command was showing short screen with instruction to install this library, next time read it before pressing q.