(I'm not familiar with installation onto a Linux machine. Please follow the instructions on the Docker Installation page.)
[ ] If you're using OS X go directly to the boot2docker installation page, download the latest Boot2Docker pkg
and install it on your laptop. This will install both Docker and Boot2Docker. The Docker installations docs have the following to say about Boot2Docker, which solves the issue for OS X users that Docker must be run on a host system with a Linux kernel.
Because the Docker daemon uses Linux-specific kernel features, you can't run Docker natively in OS X. Instead, you must install the Boot2Docker application. The application includes a VirtualBox Virtual Machine (VM), Docker itself, and the Boot2Docker management tool.