Installing Erlang OTP 18.2.1 from source on Ubuntu 15.04

Run these commands on the command line to do a quick install: Assume you have installed the oracle JDK 1.7 or later. (Open JDK is also supported)

sudo apt-get install fop 

sudo apt-get install libncurses5-dev

sudo apt-get install unixodbc-dev

sudo apt-get install g++

sudo apt-get install libssl-dev

Download Erlang OTP source file using http://www.erlang.org/download.html . Make sure it is OTP source.

Let assume you downloaded  the otp_src_18.2.1.tar.gz file.

Then run following commands.

tar -zxf otp_src_18.2.1.tar.gz

cd  otp_src_18.2.1

./configure

make

sudo make install

Should be ready to go now!

Troubleshooting

What happens at each step if the prerequisite packages are not installed first

If you download, extract and try to configure Erlang without installing the prerequisites first, this is what you will see:

./configure

...

configure: error: No curses library functions found

configure: error: /bin/bash '/usr/local/src/otp_src_R14B02/erts/configure' failed for erts

So now you do this:

sudo apt-get install libncurses5-dev

Now let's try it again:

./configure

....

*********************************************************************

**********************  APPLICATIONS DISABLED  **********************

*********************************************************************

crypto         : No usable OpenSSL found

jinterface     : No Java compiler found

odbc           : ODBC library - link check failed

orber          : No C++ compiler found

ssh            : No usable OpenSSL found

ssl            : No usable OpenSSL found

*********************************************************************

*********************************************************************

**********************  APPLICATIONS INFORMATION  *******************

*********************************************************************

wx             : wxWidgets not found, wx will NOT be usable

*********************************************************************

*********************************************************************

**********************  DOCUMENTATION INFORMATION  ******************

*********************************************************************

documentation  : 

                 fop is missing.

                 Using fakefop to generate placeholder PDF files.

*********************************************************************

ok that is better, but lets knock off some of these missing items.

Run the following at the command line:

sudo apt-get install fop 

sudo apt-get install libssl-dev

sudo apt-get install unixodbc-dev

sudo apt-get install g++

./configure

....

*********************************************************************

**********************  APPLICATIONS INFORMATION  *******************

*********************************************************************

wx             : wxWidgets not found, wx will NOT be usable

*********************************************************************

ok - looking better

Now lets run these:

sudo apt-get install libwxbase2.8

sudo apt-get install libwxgtk2.8-dev

sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev

sudo apt-get install libqt4-opengl-dev

./configure

...

configure: creating ./config.status

...

ah, good nothing missing and no errors

time to run make

make

Ok that passed, now run make install:

sudo make install

Ok, now where is erlang going to run from:

which erl

/usr/local/bin/erl

good, this will override /usr/bin/erl 

Now time to do a little test of erlang:

 erl

Erlang R14B02 (erts-5.8.3) [source] [64-bit] [smp:2:2] [rq:2] [async-threads:0] [kernel-poll:false]

Eshell V5.8.3  (abort with ^G)

1> wx:demo().

{wx_ref,35,wxFrame,<0.34.0>}

2> 

If you get the wxErlang widgets panel, then things are probably ready to go.

References - How to Install Erlang on Ubuntu 10.10