Installing a Ruby version with rvm froze my computer--can I test to see if it installed correctly?

Question

I recently refreshed my Linux installation with Mint 9 (based on Ubuntu 10.04) 64-bit, no Ruby packages at all, and started with a clean install of rvm.

But when I ran rvm install 1.9.2, after half an hour or so of some heavy CPU usage the computer froze altogether. I powered down and restarted it, and rvm tells me that ruby-1.9.2-p0 is installed.

Same story when I ran `rvm install 1.8.7' just now.

Should I be surprised? More importantly, how can I know if the Ruby versions installed are really going to work correctly--is there a test I can run?

Answer 1

How fast is your computer? This makes all the difference here. On a slow computer, especially if it doesn't have much RAM, compiling larger projects can be painful. I remember my netbook really struggled compiling Ruby. It took something like half an hour. And that's with upgraded RAM, if I had 512MB or something, it would have taken much longer.

Edit: I can only guess what you mean by "freeze," but I'm guessing you ran out of RAM and were thrashing SWAP. This is recoverable, if you're patient, but it would be easier to reboot if that happens.