In Debian derived distributions, you can use the official Crystal repository. Snapcraft and Linuxbrew are also available.

Setup repository

First you have to add the repository to your APT configuration. For easy setup just run in your command line:

curl -sSL https://dist.crystal-lang.org/apt/setup.sh | sudo bash

That will add the signing key and the repository configuration. If you prefer to do it manually, execute the following commands:

curl -sL "https://keybase.io/crystal/pgp_keys.asc" | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb https://dist.crystal-lang.org/apt crystal main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/crystal.list
sudo apt-get update

Install

Once the repository is configured you’re ready to install Crystal:

sudo apt install crystal

The following packages are not required, but recommended for using the respective features in the standard library:

sudo apt install libssl-dev      # for using OpenSSL
sudo apt install libxml2-dev     # for using XML
sudo apt install libyaml-dev     # for using YAML
sudo apt install libgmp-dev      # for using Big numbers
sudo apt install libreadline-dev # for using Readline
sudo apt install libz-dev        # for using crystal play

Upgrade

When a new Crystal version is released you can upgrade your system using:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install crystal

Snapcraft

The Crystal snap requires to be run in classic confinement. If you have snapd installed you’re ready to install Crystal:

sudo snap install crystal --classic

You can also install the latest nightly build by using the edge channel.

sudo snap install crystal --classic --edge

Find further information at Crystal’s snapcraft page

Linuxbrew

If you have Linuxbrew installed you’re ready to install Crystal:

brew update
brew install crystal-lang

If you’re planning to contribute to the language itself you might find useful to install LLVM as well. So replace the last line with:

brew install crystal-lang --with-llvm