At this point as a Rubyist the only thing you really need is rubygems (of any version) on your computer. gem install rvm and then rvm install RUBY_VERSION.
indeed. I stopped worrying about native system ruby version since moving to rvm. it is almost the only way to keep you sane while dealing with distros and ruby versions.
What's the best way to get rubygems with no other ruby packages on my system? Package manager, or dl and compile it?
My package manager wants to install ruby, irb, and a couple other 1.9.1 packages with it that I'm not sure I'll want after using rvm to install the 1.9.2 versions.
Go with whatever your distro provides as a default. RVM completely segregates your RVM Rubies from your system Ruby, so you're far better off with a "common" system Ruby install than you are trying to hack together a stripped down Ruby install. The package maintainers already know the platform specific idiosyncrasies you'll need to work around, so might as well leverage that. You may also encounter other software that expects a certain system Ruby environment on your system, so there's that too.
