Download and extract Erlang source code:
wget http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_src_R15B.tar.gz tar xfvz otp_src_R15B.tar.gz
Install c compiler, make, git and other needed tools to compile just about anything C based in Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install build-essential git-core libwxgtk2.8-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libglu1-mesa-dev libpng3 wx-common default-jre default-jdk fop
Install Erlang build dependencies, this is a shortcut to not having to wonder what dependencies are needed to build Erlang from source
sudo apt-get build-dep erlang
Build and install erlang
./configure make make docs sudo make install sudo make install-docs