How to install lxml on Ubuntu

Question

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.

Answer 1

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: can't installing lxml on Ubuntu 12.04).

Answer 2

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

Answer 3

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

apt-get install python-dev

Answer 4

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.

Answer 5

For Ubuntu 14.04

sudo apt-get install python-lxml

worked for me.

Answer 6

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. :)