As an update to my previous notes on building R22.2, my current notes for building Erlang R23.0 and installing ZX using kerl on a fresh system (Kubuntu 18.04 LTS) are below. The same instructions (or very nearly the same) should work for any Debian or Ubuntu version within a few years of 18.04 LTS.
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install \
gcc curl g++ dpkg-dev build-essential automake autoconf \
libncurses5-dev libssl-dev flex xsltproc libwxgtk3.0-dev \
wget vim git
mkdir vcs bin
cd vcs
git clone https://github.com/kerl/kerl.git
cd ..
ln -s ~/vcs/kerl/kerl bin/kerl
kerl update releases
kerl build 23.0 23.0
kerl install 23.0 ~/.erts/23.0
echo '. "$HOME"/.erts/23.0/activate' >> .bashrc
. ~/.erts/23.0/activate
wget -q https://zxq9.com/projects/zomp/get_zx && bash get_zx
[NOTE: ~/vcs/ is where I usually put “version control system” managed code and my backup and sync scripts know to never copy or update that one.]
And that’s that. If you’re on a full desktop installation some of the packages in the apt install [stuff...] may be redundant, of course (who doesn’t already have wget and git?), but that’s no big deal.