I just found this out today - if you get the “/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lz” message when you are trying to compile code in linux, it means you need to get the zlib development packages.

This took a long time to figure out, so I figured I would share the love.

if you are using Ubuntu:

Go to the package manager and search for zlib. Add the packages that appear that mention development in their description.

EDIT: It seems this post is getting a lot of hits. If you found it useful or have anything to add please reply to help other out too!