How to install lxml on Ubuntu

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: can't installing lxml on Ubuntu 12.04).