Install to Linux

Install Docker Engine

Install Docker Engine following the official Docker instructions.

Ensure you have a working Docker installation by running docker version.

Download and install spin

Run the installer with this simple command in your terminal. No root permissions required.

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/serversideup/spin/main/tools/install.sh)"

The above script will install spin at the user level in ~/.spin, using less than 300KB of storage.

Add spin to your PATH

In order for your terminal to know where spin is located, we need to add this to your "PATH" for your shell. Depending on your shell, you will need to paste the following text at the BOTTOM of the appropriate file:

# Add this to `~/.zshrc` or `~/.bashrc`
export PATH="$HOME/.spin/bin:$PATH"

Files to modify:

• Bash (shipped as default for most distros): ~/.bashrc
• ZSH (for the true hackers 🤓): ~/.zshrc

You can use something like nano or vim to modify these files.

Source your changes

To apply the changes, simply restart your terminal or you can source the file you just modified:

# If you're using ZSH
source ~/.zshrc

# If you're using Bash
source ~/.bashrc

Configure Docker Compose V2

Spin is set to run the latest version of Docker Compose. By default, Linux still ships with V1. You can follow Docker's official steps on How to Install Docker Compose V2 →

Verify your user can run Docker commands

docker compose version

❌ If you run into an error: Add your user to the Docker Group

If your user does not have access to the Docker Daemon, you will need to add it.

Ensure the "docker" group is created

sudo groupadd docker

Add your user to the "docker" group

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Activate changes to your group

newgrp docker

Validate spin is working

You should be able to run this and get a result 🥳

spin version