Install Sphinx Search on Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex

If you've graduated from using Ferret you may have heard of the joys of Sphinx Search. Regardless of which plugin you use (there are several) you'll need to install Sphinx itself. If you're running Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex then these instructions are for you. That said, this will work on Debian or Ubuntu Hardy as well.

1. Update and Grab dependencies. Run these commands in order to get the files you need to install Sphinx.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install libmysqlclient15-dev

2. Download Sphinx. You can download the latest code from their website.

3.Untar the source and prep. Here's where it gets a bit complicated. You'll need to extract the source, change into the directory and configure Sphinx. Do that with these commands.

tar xvzf sphinx-0.9.8.1.tar.gz
cd sphinx-0.9.8.1/
./configure --with-mysql-includes=/usr/include/mysql --with-mysql-libs=/usr/lib/mysql

4. Make and Install Sphinx Run the standard linux commands to install Sphinx.

make
sudo make install

That's it! Now you can grab your plugins and start up the server.