Php – How to enable SSL for PHP cURL on Linux

No you don't need to recompile.

there 3 different ways to enable/install php5-curl extension on Ubuntu. all of them are easy. here is the link to that. http://php.net/manual/en/install.pecl.php last 3 options starting with "compiling..." all works for you. apply any of them. get curl.so file in extensions directory of php installation. then edit related extension line in php.ini file. restart the apache.

btw, dpkg can not update the installation via deb/apt, because you didn't use precompiled packages so it's normal behaviour of apt.

why do you need to remove suhosin patch ?

install the package

apt-get install php5-curl

at this point php should already be configured to load that library [ /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/curl.ini ]; restart apache

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart