Is there a simple way to install Ruby 1.8.7 on Fedora 11 or 12 without side-stepping the yum/RPM package management system too severely? Building from source is always an option, but it tends to deploy things in irregular places and proves to be more fuss to maintain in the long run.
A self-built RPM is okay, but I'm presuming there's a .rpm out there somewhere already. Rails is not especially happy with 1.8.6 and the Fedora community, for various reasons, considers 1.8.7 to be toxic and best avoided.
Edit:
One suggestion I've received is to use rvm
Best Answer
RVM may not work today on Fedora 12. The problem is to compile Ruby against the openssl-1.0.0(beta 3 or 4) version packaged with F12: It does not work.
The Ruby Core community is aware of the problem, and fixed it. The code is patched in the ruby1-8-8 and ruby1-9.x development branches. But then, it is difficult to get these patches with RVM. RVM will fetch a specific version from "stable" repositories (not sure it is the appropriate term), e.g.
Which does not include yet the above patches. And if you try with RVM to get the latest version of the 1.8.7 core like p278, some independent segfaults problems occur (one reason why the RVM documentation recommends the p174 one).
If you need a working Ruby quick, an install from source works well on F12. It was the solution I chose, waiting for patched versions manageable by the very helpful RVM.