In debian you can try "apt-get install build-essential libtool libltdl-dev automake" (I hope I did not forget something in this list). The autogen.sh script needs autotools installed to generate the configure script. This stuff is often already installed on the computers used for software development, but may be indeed missing on some systems.

edit: hmm, actually based on the error message, the autotools might be already fine. Try "apt-get install libcurl-dev" to see if this resolves the curl related issues.