If your system does NOT have one of these installed, you will need to install the mandatory ones at the very least before proceeding further. Instructions on how to do this will come with each individual package.
Once you've installed the required software packages, the simplest way to build mapnik is to run "scons" (The software builder) without any options:
$ cd /path/to/mapnik-sourcecode
$ /path/to/python scons/scons.py
This should compile and link the mapnik library, the input plugins and the python language binding (if possible). If any mandatory dependencies are not found the build will fail, and you will need to specify custom paths to your libraries and include files (see below).
Note that the python used to run "scons" does NOT have to be the same as the one used for the python bindings.
"scons" accepts a variety of options to customize your build. This allows you to specify which components are compiled, where to find dependencies, where to install mapnik, and so on.
To see the list of available options, from the root of the source distribution, run:
$ /path/to/python scons/scons.py -h
You will get:
PREFIX: The install path "prefix"
default: /usr/local
actual: /usr/local
BOOST_INCLUDES: Search path for boost include files ( /path/to/BOOST_INCLUDES )
default: /usr/include
actual: /usr/include
BOOST_LIBS: Search path for boost library files ( /path/to/BOOST_LIBS )
default: /usr/lib
actual: /usr/lib
FREETYPE_INCLUDES: Search path for FreeType include files ( /path/to/FREETYPE_INCLUDES )
default: /usr/include
actual: /usr/include
FREETYPE_LIBS: Search path for FreeType library files ( /path/to/FREETYPE_LIBS )
default: /usr/lib
actual: /usr/lib
PNG_INCLUDES: Search path for libpng include files ( /path/to/PNG_INCLUDES )
default: /usr/include
actual: /usr/include
PNG_LIBS: Search path for libpng include files ( /path/to/PNG_LIBS )
default: /usr/lib
actual: /usr/lib
JPEG_INCLUDES: Search path for libjpeg include files ( /path/to/JPEG_INCLUDES )
default: /usr/include
actual: /usr/include
JPEG_LIBS: Search path for libjpeg library files ( /path/to/JPEG_LIBS )
default: /usr/lib
actual: /usr/lib
TIFF_INCLUDES: Search path for libtiff include files ( /path/to/TIFF_INCLUDES )
default: /usr/include
actual: /usr/include
TIFF_LIBS: Search path for libtiff library files ( /path/to/TIFF_LIBS )
default: /usr/lib
actual: /usr/lib
PGSQL_INCLUDES: Search path for PostgreSQL include files ( /path/to/PGSQL_INCLUDES )
default: /usr/include
actual: /usr/include
PGSQL_LIBS: Search path for PostgreSQL library files ( /path/to/PGSQL_LIBS )