Compiling VLC on Linux: Error couldnt find Lua

Question

I am trying to compile VLC for Linux. When I run the configure script, I am getting the error message

configure: error: Could not find lua. Lua is needed for some interfaces (rc, telnet, http) as well as many other custom scripts. Use --disable-lua to ignore this error.

I have lua on my system. I ran lua -v and got

Lua 5.1.4 Copyright (C) 1994-2008 Lua.org, PUC-Rio

whereis lua gives

/usr/bin/lua /usr/lib/lua /usr/share/lua /usr/share/man/man1/lua.1.gz

Which looks to be a standard location. Any ideas on why configure isn't picking up lua?

Answer 1

On Debian based

$ apt-get install lua5.2 liblua5.2-dev

Worked for me

Answer 2

As mentioned by Not_a_Golfer, you need Lua header/library files