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Ugh, I am sick of seeing those 'sudo make install' howtos potentially messing with system :S

The one powerful feature of Linux distributions is the package management. Every file that you have installed on your filesystem is accounted for...

And now I'm left wondering how this guy updates to next (major) ruby version :P

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Exactly.

First, check http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/ for the package you're lusting after. (In this case, pkg-ruby has the ruby1.9.1 package at 1.9.1.243-2 on trunk.)

Then, use svn-buildpackage to build yourself the damn package.

Finally, install the package, basking in the warmth of replicable, reversible package management.

This is fine if the package maintainers are relatively up-to-date with the software you require, but often they aren't. Ubuntu Hardy's version of Ruby 1.9 is pretty outdated and thus probably doesn't include, amongst other things, some rather vital security fixes.

Don't get me wrong—I'm all in favour of package managers. Sometimes, however, they aren't sufficient.

But checkinstall (rather than make install) still uses the up-to-date source files. It just allows your package manager to remove the application when you're done with it (e.g. when you're ready to upgrade to a sill-newer version).

Yeah, but there's also a possibility to create a package yourself (or use this checkinstall)

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