How to install ruby 1.8.7 back on Ubuntu 14.04 after upgrade?

Upgrading to 14.04 removed my ruby 1.8.7. I need it back. :) Badly. Some old projects still rely on it.

Gems seems to be left untouched.

How do I install ruby 1.8 back while still keeping Ubuntu 14.04 on my computer? Any PPA's to add? I tried compiling from source but got a bunch of errors.

I did this by adding the saucy (13.10) repositories back to my sources.list file.

1. sudo -H gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
2. Add deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy main restricted after the first set.
3. Save the file and exit the editor.
4. sudo apt-get update
5. sudo apt-get install ruby1.8
6. sudo apt-get install rubygems

Probably isn't the best way, but it seemed to work for me. I had an older project with compass/sass that was failing on ruby 1.9 but now works as before.

I noticed that installing ruby 1.8 also installed a package called ruby-switch. Might be able to switch between 1.8 and 1.9 with this utility, although I haven't played with it and RVM is probably a better solution for switching ruby versions.

You should not use repos that are for older versions. You will run into severe maintenance problems and possibly break your system.

Use a PPA like this one:

sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:brightbox/ruby-ng
sudo apt-get update

EDIT: As pointed out in the comments, they don't support 14.04 just yet, but they have an experimental repository that has packages for Trusty.