Watchman ( 4.9.0 ) installation for Ubuntu 16.04

install-watchman.sh

# checkout, compile & install
git clone https://github.com/facebook/watchman.git
cd watchman/
git checkout v4.9.0
sudo apt-get install -y autoconf automake build-essential python-dev libssl-dev libtool
./autogen.sh
./configure
make
sudo make install

# raise inotify limit
echo 999999 | sudo tee -a /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches     && \
  echo 999999 | sudo tee -a /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_queued_events  && \
  echo 999999 | sudo tee -a /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_instances && \
  watchman shutdown-server

$ cd ~
$ git clone https://github.com/facebook/watchman.git
$ cd watchman/
$ git checkout v4.7.0
$ sudo apt-get install -y autoconf automake build-essential python-dev
$ ./autogen.sh
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install

$ watchman --version
$ echo 999999 | sudo tee -a /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches && echo 999999 | sudo tee -a /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_queued_events && echo 999999 | sudo tee -a /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_instances && watchman shutdown-server

Thanks for the script.
+1 for apt-get install pkg-config. Probably I do not have it because I am installing watchman into a docker container.

Same as @jazzfog, I had to install pkg-config

Line 5 change to

sudo apt-get install -y autoconf automake build-essential python-dev libssl-dev libtool pkg-config

I get this error while running make

make  all-am
make[1]: Entering directory '/home/ekene/watchman'
  CXXLD    watchman
/usr/bin/x86_64-linux-gnu-ld: libwildmatch.a(wildmatch.o): relocation R_X86_64_32 against `.rodata.str1.1' can not be used when making a PIE object; recompile with -fPIC
/usr/bin/x86_64-linux-gnu-ld: final link failed: Nonrepresentable section on output
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
Makefile:1566: recipe for target 'watchman' failed
make[1]: *** [watchman] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/ekene/watchman'
Makefile:1101: recipe for target 'all' failed
make: *** [all] Error 2

Note that with more recent versions of gcc, you'll need to do ./configure --enable-lenient so that warnings aren't promoted to errors.

See facebook/watchman#638 (comment)