Linux distributions come with "packager managers" that let you install software that they offer. Most Linux distributions offer curl and libcurl to be installed if they are not installed by default.

Ubuntu and Debian

apt is a tool to install prebuilt packages on Debian Linux and Ubuntu Linux distributions and derivatives.

To install the curl command-line tool, you usually just

apt install curl

…and that then makes sure the dependencies are installed and usually libcurl is then also installed as an individual package.

If you want to build applications against libcurl, you need a development package installed to get the include headers and some additional documentation, etc. You can then select a libcurl with the TLS backend you prefer:

apt install libcurl4-openssl-dev

or

apt install libcurl4-nss-dev

or

apt install libcurl4-gnutls-dev

Redhat and Centos

With Redhat Linux and CentOS Linux derivatives, you use yum to install packages. Install the command-line tool with:

yum install curl

You install the libcurl development package (with include files and some docs, etc.) with this:

yum install libcurl-devel

nix

​Nix is a package manager default to the NixOS distribution, but it can also be used on any Linux distribution.

In order to install command-line tool:

nix-env -i curl

Arch Linux

curl is located in the core repository of Arch Linux. This means it should be installed automatically if you follow the normal installation procedure.

If curl is not installed, Arch Linux uses pacman to install packages:

pacman -S curl