[mapserver-users] new user question on shapefiles

[Patrick Stanistreet]

Greetings,

I have compiled mapserver 3.6.1 on redhat 7.2 using for the most part
the red hat instructions on the wiki site.  I have the itasca demo
up and running first with gifs and then with png and have read some
of the available documentation, but I have no background in GIS at
this time.

I am trying to use the tutorial instructions and some state shapefiles 
downloaded
from the nationalatlas site to try and learn how to setup a basic site,
no layers ( if that makes sense) just the basic shapefile.  From the 
tutorial
I have tried to hack the first tutorial lesson and substitute the Calif. 
state
shapefile without luck.  What I think I need are the basics of how
mapserver takes a shapefile and displays it.
 I have also tried substituting the Calif. shapefile in the Itasca demo.
Although I see a png files being created in the tmp directory,
I dont believe I have the right approach as looking at the files
none appear to be the state outline.

Should I be looking elsewhere , perhaps some shared library doc on 
shapefiles?

Just to mention, the redhat install instructions on the wiki site, 
discuss using
freetype1 but I couldn't get the compiles to work with freetype1 as
the make ( for gd I think) would fails with missing ftglyph.h and freetype.h
and checking there was no ftglyph.h in the freetype directory in rh7.2.
Using freetype2 the compile went through.