error: --with-readline=yes (default) and headers/libs are not available

Use the following command will solve this problem

./configure --with-readline=no --with-x=no

--with-x=no turns off the X Windows System . It is the GUI for the Linux and Unix-like OS. My computer has no X Windows installed, so I turn off.
But I highly recommand to install readline library before R installtion with '--with-readline=yes', as the command operation style is quitely unfriendly with '--with-readline=no' . See more libreadline installation in linux for more details

you can use the following command for more install configuration details

./configure --help

on I found problem on compiling R 3.1.1 so as a part of solution , i recommend to install the below libraries first before you compile this R and use

sudo apt-get install build-essentialsudo apt-get install fort77sudo apt-get install xorg-devsudo apt-get install liblzma-dev  libblas-dev gfortransudo apt-get install gcc-multilibsudo apt-get install gobjc++sudo apt-get install aptitudesudo aptitude install libreadline-dev

Thank you other people who posted and kept the knowledge going..

I think you need the GNU readline package. You can install it with apt-get, aptitude, or the appropiate tool for your distribution. In Ubuntu:

aptitude install libreadline-dev