A carefully collected list of packages you need to build on a Ubuntu/debian box:

{{{
autoconf
automake
bzip2
cmake
curl
g++
g77
gcc
libbz2-dev
libmysqlclient-dev
libgl-dev 
libglut-dev
libpcre3-dev
libssl-dev
libx11-dev 
libxft2-dev
libxi-dev
libxmu-dev
libxpm-dev
libxt-dev
m4
make
ncurses-dev
patch
python-dev
rsync
subversion (svn)
tcl8.4-dev
libxml2-dev
}}}

Optionals that you'll want:
{{{
ccache
}}}

You can install these with e.g. "aptitude install ncurses-dev".  To search for packages use "aptitude search (string)", like "aptitude search matplot", or "aptitude search PAW".

A few things to note:

 * On a new debian install, where you're only going to be developing on the trunk of offline (until icerec and sim catch up) , you can just install tools "i3-tools-v2", which will save you a bunch of time compiling  tools.  This is now the default tool install.  See: [http://wiki.icecube.wisc.edu/index.php/New_Tool_Build_system]

 * You don't need to be paranoid about using $I3_PORTS/bin/cmake and not the system cmake (long as the system cmake is up-to-date, which it is on debian/ubuntu). 

 * package list formatted for cut/paste:
autoconf
automake
bzip2
cmake
curl
g++
g77
gcc
libbz2-dev
libmysqlclient-dev
libgl-dev 
libglut-dev
libpcre3-dev
libssl-dev
libx11-dev 
libxft2-dev
libxi-dev
libxmu-dev
libxpm-dev
libxt-dev
m4
make
ncurses-dev
patch
python-dev
rsync
subversion
tcl8.4-dev
libxml2-dev