Problem in installing Boost c++ libraries

[genome1]

I have downloaded boost_1_54_0.tar.gz as it is a prerequisite for installing TopHat. Then I had unpacked and tried to install according to user manual.
I have followed the steps as below:

$tar -zxvf boost_1_54_0.tar.gz
$cd boost_1_54_0/
$./bootstrap.sh
$./b2 install --prefix=PREFIX

But I got an error message..... The last few lines of the message are:

...failed gcc.compile.c++ bin.v2/libs/python/build/gcc-4.4.3/release/link-static/threading-multi/object/function_doc_signature.o...
...skipped <pbin.v2/libs/python/build/gcc-4.4.3/release/link-static/threading-multi>libboost_python.a(clean) for lack of <pbin.v2/libs/python/build/gcc-4.4.3/release/link-static/threading-multi>numeric.o...
...skipped <pbin.v2/libs/python/build/gcc-4.4.3/release/link-static/threading-multi>libboost_python.a for lack of <pbin.v2/libs/python/build/gcc-4.4.3/release/link-static/threading-multi>numeric.o...
...skipped <pPREFIX/lib>libboost_python.a for lack of <pbin.v2/libs/python/build/gcc-4.4.3/release/link-static/threading-multi>libboost_python.a...
...failed updating 56 targets...
...skipped 6 targets...

Why I am getting such kind of error? I am using Ubuntu 64 bit machine. Can anybody help me to solve the problem. Thank you.

[sklages]

It seems the actual error message is missing ..

[gt1]

As far as I recall you may see this kind of message when the compilation process of boost does not find certain packages it depends on. It may still have successfully compiled and installed the parts of boost you need for TopHat.

[simonandrews]

Rather than manually installing from source pacakages, have you checked whether you can simply use the boost package which comes with ubuntu instead? There will be a boost package (several in fact) available in the ubuntu package manager and using that is a lot easier than adding in external source libraries which aren't managed by your package manager. You should be able to do something like:

sudo apt-get install libboost-dev

..to install them.

For tophat there are also pre-compiled binaries distributed from the project site which might well be easier to install since you won't need to install all of the source dependencies, just the runtime libraries which are probably on your system already.