How to install lxml on Ubuntu

I'm having difficulty installing lxml with easy_install on Ubuntu 11.

When I type $ easy_install lxml I get:

Searching for lxml
Reading http://pypi.python.org/simple/lxml/
Reading http://codespeak.net/lxml
Best match: lxml 2.3
Downloading http://lxml.de/files/lxml-2.3.tgz
Processing lxml-2.3.tgz
Running lxml-2.3/setup.py -q bdist_egg --dist-dir /tmp/easy_install-7UdQOZ/lxml-2.3/egg-dist-tmp-GacQGy
Building lxml version 2.3.
Building without Cython.
ERROR: /bin/sh: xslt-config: not found

** make sure the development packages of libxml2 and libxslt are installed **

Using build configuration of libxslt 
In file included from src/lxml/lxml.etree.c:227:0:
src/lxml/etree_defs.h:9:31: fatal error: libxml/xmlversion.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.

It seems that libxslt or libxml2 is not installed. I've tried following the instructions at http://www.techsww.com/tutorials/libraries/libxslt/installation/installing_libxslt_on_ubuntu_linux.php and http://www.techsww.com/tutorials/libraries/libxml/installation/installing_libxml_on_ubuntu_linux.php with no success.

If I try wget ftp://xmlsoft.org/libxml2/libxml2-sources-2.6.27.tar.gz I get

<successful connection info>
==> SYST ... done.    ==> PWD ... done.
==> TYPE I ... done.  ==> CWD (1) /libxml2 ... done.
==> SIZE libxml2-sources-2.6.27.tar.gz ... done.
==> PASV ... done.    ==> RETR libxml2-sources-2.6.27.tar.gz ... 
No such file `libxml2-sources-2.6.27.tar.gz'.

If I try the other first, I'll get to ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/libxslt --with-libxml-prefix=/usr/local/libxml2 and that will fail eventually with:

checking for libxml libraries >= 2.6.27... configure: error: Could not find libxml2 anywhere, check ftp://xmlsoft.org/.

I've tried both versions 2.6.27 and 2.6.29 of libxml2 with no difference.

Leaving no stone unturned, I have successfully done sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev, but this changes nothing.

Since you're on Ubuntu, don't bother with those source packages. Just install those development packages using apt-get.

apt-get install libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev python-dev

If you're happy with a possibly older version of lxml altogether though, you could try

apt-get install python-lxml

and be done with it. :)

I also had to install lib32z1-dev before lxml would compile (Ubuntu 13.04 x64).

sudo apt-get install lib32z1-dev

Or all the required packages together:

sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev libxslt-dev python-dev lib32z1-dev

As @Pepijn commented on @Druska 's answer, on ubuntu 13.04 x64, there is no need to use lib32z1-dev, zlib1g-dev is enough:

sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev libxslt-dev python-dev zlib1g-dev

I installed lxml with pip in Vagrant, using Ubuntu 14.04 and had the same problem. Even though all requirements where installed, i got the same error again and again. Turned out, my VM had to little memory by default. With 1024 MB everything works fine.

Add this to your VagrantFile and lxml should properly compile / install:

config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |vb|
  vb.memory = 1024
end

Thanks to sixhobbit for the hint (see: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19894197/cant-installing-lxml-on-ubuntu-12-04).

Step 1

>Install latest python updates using this command. > >sudo apt-get install python-dev

Step 2

>Add first dependency libxml2 version 2.7.0 or later > >sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev

Step 3

>Add second dependency libxslt version 1.1.23 or later > >sudo apt-get install libxslt1-dev

Step 4

>Install pip package management tool first. and run this command. > >pip install lxml

If you have any doubt Click Here

For Ubuntu 14.04

sudo apt-get install python-lxml

worked for me.

After installing the packages mentioned by AKX I still had the same problem. Solved it with

apt-get install python-dev

For Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS (Precise Pangolin) I had to do:

apt-get install libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev

(Note the "1" in libxslt1-dev)

Then I just installed lxml with pip/easy_install.

From Ubuntu 18.4 (Bionic Beaver) it is advisable to use apt instead of apt-get since it has much better structural form.

sudo apt install libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev python-dev

If you're happy with a possibly older version of lxml altogether though, you could try

sudo apt install python-lxml

First install Ubuntu's python-lxml package and its dependencies:

sudo apt-get install python-lxml

Then use pip to upgrade to the latest version of lxml for Python:

pip install lxml

Many answers here are rather old,
thanks to the pointer from @Simplans (https://stackoverflow.com/a/37759871/417747) and the home page...

What worked for me (Ubuntu bionic):

sudo apt-get install python3-lxml  

(+ sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev I installed before it, but not sure if that's the requirement still)