Install Docker Compose on Ubuntu

When trying to install Docker Compose with the command:

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sudo apt install docker-compose-plugin

you might encounter the following error:

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Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package docker-compose-plugin

This happens because the default Ubuntu repositories don’t include the latest Docker packages. To fix it, you need to enable the official Docker repository first.

Solution

  1. Remove old Docker Compose (if installed)
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    sudo apt remove docker-compose
  2. Add Docker’s official repository
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    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install -y ca-certificates curl gnupg lsb-release

    sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
    curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg \
      | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg

    echo \
      "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] \
      https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) stable" \
      | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
  3. Install Docker Compose Plugin
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    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install docker-compose-plugin