= Overview = 

QGIS, like a number of major projects (eg. KDE 4.0), uses CMake
(http://www.cmake.org) for building from source.

Following a summary of the required dependencies for building:

Required build tools:

- CMake >= 2.8.6
- Flex >= 2.5.6
- Bison >= 2.4
-

Required build dependencies:

- Qt >= 4.8.0
- Proj >= 4.4.x
- GEOS >= 3.4
- Sqlite3 >= 3.0.0
- GDAL/OGR >= 1.4.x
- Qwt >= 5.0 & (< 6.1 with internal QwtPolar)
- expat >= 1.95
- QScintilla2
-

Optional dependencies:

- for GRASS providers and plugin - GRASS >= 6.0.0. QGIS may be compiled with GRASS 6 or GRASS 7.
  It can also be compiled with both GRASS versions in a single build but only if QGIS
  is not installed with rpath. The desired GRASS version is chosen on runtime by setting
  LD_LIBRARY_PATH or PATH.
- for georeferencer - GSL >= 1.8
- for postgis support and SPIT plugin - PostgreSQL >= 8.0.x
- for gps plugin - gpsbabel
- for mapserver export and PyQGIS - Python >= 2.3 (2.5+ preferred)
- for python support - SIP >= 4.12, PyQt >= 4.8.3 must match Qt version, Qscintilla2
- for qgis mapserver - FastCGI
- for oracle provider - Oracle OCI library
-

Indirect dependencies:

Some proprietary formats (eg. ECW and MrSid) supported by GDAL require
proprietary third party libraries.  QGIS doesn't need any of those itself to
build, but will only support those formats if GDAL is built accordingly.  Refer
to http://gdal.org/formats_list.html ff. for instructions how to include
those formats in GDAL.