Answer by ktec for How to get Readline support in IRB using RVM on Ubuntu 11.10

Ok, so this might seem pretty obvious, well it always is when you know the answer:

I gave up using RVM, and switched to rbenv - which I'm very pleased I did!

sudo apt-get install libreadline-gplv2-devCONFIGURE_OPTS="--with-readline-dir=/usr/include/readline --with-openssl-dir=/usr/local" rbenv-install 1.9.2-p290

This installed without error - and I'm still not convinced I need the gplv2 package as I've got libreadline6-dev installed. However that STILL didn't resolve my problem. It did remove RVM from the equation, and show me that despite my best efforts the IRB shell was refusing to use readline.

The answer came from reading through this great guide:

RubyTools.pdf

Inside my ~/.irbrc file I found:

IRB.conf[:USE_READLINE] = false

A quick update to:

IRB.conf[:USE_READLINE] = true

And I'm cooking on gas!!

Thanks for all the great answers and suggestion, I do appreciate your time.