Install xapian Core and Bindings on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

install-xapian

# Install xapian Core and Bindings

apt-get install zlib1g-dev
apt-get install g++

curl -O http://oligarchy.co.uk/xapian/1.2.18/xapian-core-1.2.18.tar.xz
curl -O http://oligarchy.co.uk/xapian/1.2.18/xapian-bindings-1.2.18.tar.xz

unxz xapian-core-1.2.18.tar.xz
unxz xapian-bindings-1.2.18.tar.xz

tar xvf xapian-core-1.2.18.tar
tar xvf xapian-bindings-1.2.18.tar

cd xapian-core-1.2.18
./configure
make
sudo make install

cd ..
cd xapian-bindings-1.2.18
./configure
make
sudo make install

the http URLs for curl do not work anymore (changing them to https solves the issue).

Nowadays:

sudo apt-get install python-xapian
sudo apt-get install libxapian-dev

Test if it works for Python (start Python shell):

python

Do the import:

import xapian

in my case missing this: apt-get install php7.0-xml