MADlib apt install, how to?

Question

MADlib is the most complete, efficient (faster functions) and reliable Mathematical library for PostgreSQL... At official download no clues about Debian or UBUNTU "plug-and-play installation".

Checking other fonts, the best (simplest) is an old 2013's instruction for apt-get it.

... Also some lost-script of 2014... A comment say "can download the .rpm packages and to install in Ubuntu just convert the package to .deb using Alien command it will work".

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Question: secure and simplest way to install MADLib?
today (2017) at UBUNTU 16 LTS and PostgreSQL v9.6.

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Note and secondary question: Debian stable and UBUNTU LTS together are the most popular Linux distributions for web-servers, so .deb is the most important distribution form... Why does the MADlab maintainers refuse to see it? Why not welcome .deb users?
There are some technical or license problems with apt or converted .deb ?

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EDIT

I have two types of SQL servers, the v9.6 as stated, but the most important is with PostgreSQL v9.5.X (!sorry we are wayting to use v9.6 in all servers).

Situation at PostgreSQL 9.5.X in a UBUNTU 16 LTS (xenial)

• psql --version and into it, select version(); shows v9.5.6.

• command pgxnclient install madlib shows

  You need to install postgresql-server-dev-X.Y for building 
  a server-side extension or libpq-dev for building a client-side application.
  ERROR: command returned 1: ['/usr/bin/pg_config', '--libdir']

... pg_config is not a config file but a shell tool... So I installed it by sudo apt-get install libpq-dev (ok!)

• command pgxnclient install madlib shows

    INFO: best version: madlib 1.10.0
    INFO: saving /tmp/tmpip4ngh/madlib-1.10.0.zip
    INFO: unpacking: /tmp/tmpip4ngh/madlib-1.10.0.zip
    INFO: running configure
    error: cmake 2.8 or higher must be present to configure and install MADlib
    /tmp/tmpip4ngh/madlib-1.10.0/configure: 13: exit: Illegal number: -1
    ERROR: configure failed with return code 2
  

... but it is not a "CMake version error", is "no CMake" error, so used apt install cmake!

but them a cmake problem,

pgxnclient install madlib
INFO: best version: madlib 1.10.0
INFO: saving /tmp/tmpspQ3zf/madlib-1.10.0.zip
INFO: unpacking: /tmp/tmpspQ3zf/madlib-1.10.0.zip
INFO: running configure
-- The C compiler identification is GNU 5.4.0
-- The CXX compiler identification is GNU 5.4.0
-- Check for working C compiler: /usr/bin/gcc
-- Check for working C compiler: /usr/bin/gcc -- works
-- Detecting C compiler ABI info
-- Detecting C compiler ABI info - done
-- Detecting C compile features
-- Detecting C compile features - done
-- Check for working CXX compiler: /usr/bin/g++
-- Check for working CXX compiler: /usr/bin/g++ -- works
-- Detecting CXX compiler ABI info
-- Detecting CXX compiler ABI info - done
-- Detecting CXX compile features
-- Detecting CXX compile features - done
-- Could NOT find Boost
-- No sufficiently recent version (>= 1.47) of Boost was found. Will download.
-- Found PythonInterp: /usr/bin/python (found version "2.7.12") 
CMake Error at src/ports/postgres/cmake/FindPostgreSQL.cmake:161 (message):
  Found pg_config ("/usr/bin/pg_config"), but pg_config.h file not present in
  the server include dir (/usr/include/postgresql/9.5/server).
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  src/ports/postgres/cmake/PostgreSQLUtils.cmake:66 (find_package)
  src/ports/postgres/CMakeLists.txt:360 (determine_target_versions)

-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
See also "/tmp/tmpspQ3zf/madlib-1.10.0/build/CMakeFiles/CMakeOutput.log".
INFO: building extension
make -C build all
make[1]: Entering directory '/tmp/tmpspQ3zf/madlib-1.10.0/build'
make[1]: * No rule to make target 'all'.  Stop.
make[1]: Leaving directory '/tmp/tmpspQ3zf/madlib-1.10.0/build'
Makefile:5: recipe for target 'all' failed
make: * [all] Error 2
ERROR: command returned 2: make PG_CONFIG=/usr/bin/pg_config all

Answer 1

Madlib is a Postgres extension. Many people distribute their extensions via pgxn.org, which is like the CPAN or Rubygems of Postgres extensions. So the command to install it is this:

pgxnclient install madlib

After that, you can say CREATE EXTENSION madlib in whatever database you like.

Note you may need to install some dependencies first, for example:

sudo apt-get install cmake postgresql-plpython-9.6 pgxnclient

This is what the link from 2013 is telling you, and it looks still correct to me. (Note I changed plpython from 9.1 to 9.6 though.) I tried installing madlib from pgxn myself on Postgres 9.5 + Ubuntu 14.04, and it worked.

As for why the madlib folks don't distribute a .deb file: you could always ask them, but pgxn is the mainstream way to share Postgres extensions. It's just like having a package manager for your programming language.