diff --git a/docs/installation.rst b/docs/installation.rst
index 7e7348e..595ccc8 100644
--- a/docs/installation.rst
+++ b/docs/installation.rst
@@ -22,8 +22,31 @@
     C:\> set INCLUDE=C:\OpenSSL-1.0.1f-64bit\include;%INCLUDE%
     C:\> pip install cryptography
 
+Building cryptography on Linux
+------------------------------
+
+``cryptography`` should build very easily on Linux provided you have a C
+compiler, headers for Python (if you're not using `pypy`), and headers for the
+OpenSSL and `libffi` libraries available on your system.
+
+Debian and Ubuntu systems
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+For Debian and Ubuntu, the following command line will ensure the required
+dependencies are installed:
+
+.. code-block:: console
+
+    sudo apt-get install build-essential libssl-dev libffi-dev python-dev
+
+You should now be able to build and install cryptography with the usual
+
+.. code-block:: console
+
+    python setup.py install
+
 Using your own OpenSSL on Linux
--------------------------------
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
 Python links to OpenSSL for its own purposes and this can sometimes cause
 problems when you wish to use a different version of OpenSSL with cryptography.