what is "Boost" and its thread library?

[R. Luoma]

I am trying buid from source
an image processing tool called "hugin"
(http://hugin.sourceforge.net/)
[you folks get to make thoughtful raven comments only if you help me]

I am getting stuck on the "configure" because it claims
that there is no "boost thread library" (even though the library exists).

I have tried "apt-get" and such.

I have tried compiled and installing boost from source.

Nothing works (so far).

Does anyone have useful suggestions?

-- 
R. Luoma

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