Salt is currently available in in the Debian package tree:
http://packages.debian.org/source/salt
If you're running a Debian release more recent than Wheezy use:
apt-get install salt-master
apt-get install salt-minion
As of this writing salt is only available in Debian unstable.
To build your own salt Debian packages on squeeze use:
cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/backports.list
deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main
EOF
apt-get update
apt-get install build-essential fakeroot
apt-get install python-argparse python-zmq
apt-get -t squeeze-backports install debhelper python-sphinx
After installing the necessary dependencies build the packages with:
git clone https://github.com/saltstack/salt.git
cd salt
fakeroot debian/rules binary
You will need to install the salt-common package along with the salt-minion or salt-master packages. For example:
dpkg -i salt-common_<version>.deb salt-minion<version>.deb
apt-get -f install
The last command pulls in the required dependencies for your salt packages.
Backports for Wheezy should be available shortly after it's release.
For more information how to use debian-backports see http://backports-master.debian.org/Instructions/
Now go to the Configuring Salt page.