First install Steel Bank Common Lisp (sbcl) , it comes in a bz2 file and installs into /usr/local/bin. If you are using something like Ubuntu, dig around with synaptic installer, because all of this is already done for you, and it is really pretty seamless once you get past a few gotchas.

Next make a link from sbcl to lisp as root or through sudo:

cd /usr/local/bin
ln -s sbcl lisp

Now download slime and add to your .emacs file. Mine was in my home directory for GNU Emacs 21.3.1:

(add-to-list `load-path "~/slime-2009-04-13")
(require 'slime)
(slime-setup)

That’s it, you are done, ‘^M (alt on my keyboard) slime’ starts it up.

After playing around with it a little bit, you will realize that ‘asdf’ is really cool so down it too . To install it, just load it up and you are done.