In elementary OS, you can use the Official Crystal deb repository. Snapcraft and Linuxbrew are also available.

Official Crystal deb repository

To install latest stable Crystal release from the official Crystal repository hosted on the Open Build Service run in your command line:

curl -fsSL https://crystal-lang.org/install.sh | sudo bash

The install script accepts optional arguments to install or update to a release of another channel.

• --version with major.minor or latest value
• --channel with stable, unstable, or nightly value

curl -fsSL https://crystal-lang.org/install.sh | sudo bash -s -- --channel=nightly

You can find more detailed information at the announcement post.

Manual setup

Insert your distribution name and release as {REPOSITORY} in the following script and you are all set. You can find available options on the installation page at OBS.

echo "deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/languages:/crystal/{REPOSITORY}/ /" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/crystal.list

# Add signing key
curl -fsSL https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/languages:/crystal/{REPOSITORY}/Release.key | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/crystal.gpg > /dev/null

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

sudo apt update
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 libz-dev        # for using crystal play

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