Python Image Library (PIL) on MediaTemple (dv)

When you're on MediaTemple (dv) with root access, first get the TAR from here. As of this post, the latest version is 1.1.6.

wget http://effbot.org/downloads/Imaging-1.1.6.tar.gz

Untar in the usual way.

tar zxvf Imaging-1.1.6.tar.gz

Then, go into the created folder and install the package using:

python setup.py install

If all goes well your ssh will echo many installation processes, following which you will have an amazingly easy time working with images via http.