$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=8.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=hardy
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 8.04.3 LTS"

actually it's an freshly installed xubuntu

here is what you need to run ./configure without interruption

sudo apt-get install g++-4.2 gcc gcc-4.2 gnutls-dev libboost-dev libboost-dev libboost-egex-dev libbz2-dev libc6-dev libexpat-dev libfreetype6-dev libgcc1 libgnutls-dev liblua5.1-0-dev liblua5.1-dev liblua5.1-dev libphysfs-dev libsdl1.2-dev libsdl-image1.2-dev libsdl-image-dev libsdl-mixer1.2-dev libsdl-sound1.2-dev libsigc++-1.2-dev libwxgtk2.8-dev lua5.1 make pkg-config