Before installing or building PHP you will need to install the various libraries you are planning on having PHP use. We will be using the pdflib library later on in this course. Here is how you would download, compile and install this library.

pdflib

% wget http://www.pdflib.com/pdflib/download/pdflib-4.0.3.tar.gz
% tar zxvf pdflib-4.0.3.tar.gz
% cd pdflib-4.0.3
% ./configure  --enable-php=no --without-java --without-tcl
% make
% make install 

But, for the most part you should be able to download the appropriate -devel package from whataver Linux distribution you are on.