MapnikDependencies.md

+<!-- Name: MapnikDependencies -->
+<!-- Version: 3 -->
+<!-- Last-Modified: 2009/11/11 11:10:04 -->
+<!-- Author: springmeyer -->
+## Mapnik Dependencies
+
+Mapnik requires the Boost libraries, International Components for Unicode (ICU), Freetype, Proj4, and a variety of image libraries.
+
+Installing Boost is often new to mapnik users, but the majority of remaining dependencies are more familiar.
+
+If you have previously built or installed other open source graphics or mapping applications it is likely that many of the remaining dependencies are already installed.
+
+Notes on installing Mapnik dependencies are included within each [MapnikInstallation platform specific instructions].
+
+## Learn More
+
+ * *Input Format Plugins*
+  * PostGIS/PostgreSQL - to read data using the Mapnik PostGIS plugin.
+   * [PostgreSQL](http://www.postgresql.org/): Relational database system
+   * [PostGIS](http://www.postgis.org/): Spatial extension to PostgreSQL
+  * [GDAL](http://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/wiki/FAQGeneral#WhatdoesGDALstandsfor) - to read raster data using the Mapnik GDAL plugin
+   * [GDAL](http://www.gdal.org/): Geospatial Data Abstraction Library
+   * [GDAL Formats](http://www.gdal.org/formats_list.html): Raster Formats supported by GDAL
+
+ * *Libraries* for Imaging
+  * libcairo - [Multi-platform 2D graphics library](http://www.cairographics.org/)
+  * libcairomm - [C++ wrapper for Cairo graphics](http://www.cairographics.org/cairomm/)
+  * pycairo  - [Python bindings for the cairo graphics library](http://www.cairographics.org/pycairo/)
+  * tinyxml, spirit, or libxml2  - for XML parsing extensions, see: ManagingLargeXmlFiles
+
+ * *Mapnik WMS* (Web Map Service) dependencies - [WMS on wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Map_Service)
+  * jonpy.fcgi - [Jon's FastCGI Python module](http://jonpy.sourceforge.net/)
+  * libxslt - [XSLT(Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) C library](http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT/)
+  * libxml2 - [XML C parser](http://xmlsoft.org/)
+  * lxml - [Python bindings for the libxml2 and libxslt libraries](http://codespeak.net/lxml/index.html)
+  * PIL [Python Imaging Library](http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/)
+  * Proj.4 - see above
+  * Apache webserver: Comes pre-installed on Mac OS X
+    * Apache2 config is in: /etc/apache2/
+    * Apache2 web root is: /Library/WebServer
+    * Apache2 cgi-bin is: /Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables
+    * Apache2 logs are in: /var/log/apache2/
+  * Python handler run as either [FastCGI](http://www.fastcgi.com/) or [mod-fcgid](http://fastcgi.coremail.cn/) 
+  * WSGI handler also possible, but undocumented
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