Starting from version 1.2.x, Xapian repository on Ubuntu does not contain php5-xapian package apparently due to the license incompatability between GPL and PHP license(great…)
Issue is discussed somewhat at length here.

But in the meantime, folks suggesting to build PHP bindings for Xapian manually on Ubuntu and Debian. Here is a quick command trail that shows how to install Xapian 1.2.5 PHP bindings on Ubuntu Lucid(10.04), also tested on Ubuntu 10.10 and 11.04:

1. Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add the following lines to it:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/xapian-backports/xapian-1.2/ubuntu lucid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/xapian-backports/xapian-1.2/ubuntu lucid main

2. Get some required packages:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get build-dep xapian-bindings
sudo apt-get install php5-dev php5-cli
sudo apt-get install devscripts

3. Fetch sources and build:

apt-get source xapian-bindings
cd xapian-bindings-1.2.5
rm debian/control
env PHP_VERSIONS=5 debian/rules maint
debuild -e PHP_VERSIONS=5 -us -uc

This will generate .deb file in the folder, one level up.

4. Finally, install php5-xapian extenstion:

cd ..
sudo dpkg -i php5-xapian*.deb

5. Verify that you got it running:

php -i | grep Xapian

Information about this process is taken from here and here.