Introduction

This document briefly describes how to build QGIS 0.5 (Bandit) from the source distribution. These instructions are for Linux/Unix and other POSIX systems which have the required build environment.

Installing the Windows version of QGIS is simply a matter of unzipping the WIN32 distribution and creating a shortcut to the application. See the README.WIN32 file for additional information regarding the Windows version of QGIS. At version 0.5, the GRASS plugin is not available in Windows.

The latest version of this document can always be found at http://qgis.org/docs/install.html.

QGIS can be installed with three levels of support for data stores:

1. Basic raster and vector support (GDAL and OGR formats)
2. PostreSQL/GEOS/PostGIS
3. GRASS raster and vector support

Basic support uses the GDAL/OGR libraries and supports many raster and vector formats. For more information on the available formats, see http://www.remotesensing.org:16080/gdal/formats_list.html and http://www.remotesensing.org:16080/gdal/ogr/ogr_formats.html.

PostgreSQL/PostGIS support allows you to store spatial data in a PostgreSQL database. GRASS support provides access to GRASS mapsets.

NOTE - IF YOU PLAN TO BUILD QGIS WITH GRASS SUPPORT, VERSION 1.2.3 OR HIGHER OF GDAL MUST BE USED.

Each of the requirements are discussed below. Note that the information given below is abstracted from the installation documentation for each of the libraries. See the install information for each library to get detailed instructions. In the documentation below, the file names and versions used are examples.

If you are building QGIS without PostgreSQL or GRASS support, skip to the section on Installing GDAL/OGR.