Installing DuckDB

Installing DuckDB

Installing DuckDB on the WSL2 Host

DuckDB 61,228 ships as one self-contained binary per platform. This book pins 1.5.5 (22 July 2026); bugfix release 1.5.6 followed on 28 September 2026. The script installs the CLI from its GitHub 29 release and the matching Python package into the lane's virtual environment:

duck_install.sh: the DuckDB CLI and the Python client, pinned to 1.5.5Shell

mkdir -p /home/dev/v7-l2/tools/duckdb-1.5.5 && cd /home/dev/v7-l2/tools/duckdb-1.5.5
curl -fsSL -o duckdb_cli.zip \
  https://github.com/duckdb/duckdb/releases/download/v1.5.5/duckdb_cli-linux-amd64.zip
unzip -oq duckdb_cli.zip && rm duckdb_cli.zip
ls -l --block-size=M duckdb | awk '{print $5, $9}'
./duckdb --version
/home/dev/v7-l2/venv/bin/pip install -q duckdb==1.5.5
/home/dev/v7-l2/venv/bin/python -c "import duckdb; print('python', duckdb.__version__)"

Output

60 duckdb
v1.5.5 (Variegata) d8cdaa33fd
python 1.5.5

The Python wheel bundles its own copy of the engine; keep it and the CLI on one version, because a file written by a newer DuckDB may not open in an older one. DuckDB's own installer (curl 3,008 https://install.duckdb.org 61,228 | bash) fetches the latest release; a pinned URL keeps builds reproducible.

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