using_build-couchdb_on_ubuntu.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Build CouchDB 1.0.1 from source using build-couchdb. All needed dependencies
# are also build from source and form a self-contained installation. Specifiy
# COUCHDB_PREFIX to the location where you would like to have everything
# installed to.
# When everything is done, the init.d-script and default settings for CouchDB
# are linked to the right places, the bind address is set to 0.0.0.0 and CouchDB
# will be started, so you can relax!

COUCHDB_PREFIX=/usr/local/couchdb-1.0.1

apt-get update
apt-get -y install make gcc zlib1g-dev libssl-dev libreadline5-dev bison \
                   rake \
                   git-arch

git clone git://github.com/couchone/build-couchdb.git
cd build-couchdb
git submodule init
git submodule update

PREFIX=$COUCHDB_PREFIX rake couchdb_build=$COUCHDB_PREFIX

ln -s $COUCHDB_PREFIX/etc/init.d/couchdb /etc/init.d/couchdb
ln -s $COUCHDB_PREFIX/etc/default/couchdb /etc/default/couchdb
update-rc.d couchdb defaults

adduser --system \
        --home $COUCHDB_PREFIX/var/lib/couchdb \
        --no-create-home \
        --shell /bin/bash \
        --group \
        --gecos "CouchDB Administrator" \
        couchdb

chown -R couchdb:couchdb $COUCHDB_PREFIX/{etc,var/lib,var/run,var/log}/couchdb

curl -X PUT http://127.0.0.1:5984/_config/httpd/bind_address -d '"0.0.0.0"'

/etc/init.d/couchdb start

This script uses Jason Smith's build-couchdb (http://github.com/jhs/build-couchdb) to build a self-contained version of CouchDB with all its dependencies, place it where you want, install the proper init.d-script and makes it start at system boot.