Install GDAL in virtualenvwrapper environment

Question

I tried to install gdal (pip install gdal)in virtualenvwrapper environment but I got this error :

  error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1

  ----------------------------------------
  Failed building wheel for gdal
 Failed to build gdal

I tried also "pip install --no-install GDAL" but there is nooption --no-install

what should I do !?

Joggle

Which OS is this on? pyGDAL is a little bit difficult with virtualenvs since it requires the appropriate C++ library already installed on the system. You also should match versions (i.e. if your OS has libgdal 1.9, pip install gdal==1.9 is your friend). For Debian-based systems you also need libgdal-dev installed. And then there's sometimes also CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS. – Carditis

Ubuntu 14.04 and also my gdal version on Os is 2.0.0 and I tried to install gdal==2.0.0 but does not work ! – Joggle

You need gdal-dev and gdal-bin packages. Running pip with CFLAGS="-I/usr/include/gdal" pip install gdal might also be necessary. – Carditis

Thank you. It worked for me ! – Joggle

Answer 1

Yes, installing GDAL in a venv is a doozy. Conveniently, I just wrote up the documentation on how to do so for my advisor's lab! While I am not savvy enough to pinpoint the exact cause of your error, I can give you a bunch of things to try to fix it.

First, ensure you have gdal installed on the host (i.e. not in a venv). I just run the following:

sudo apt-get install libgdal1i libgdal1-dev libgdal-dev

Now run gdal-config --version to get the version that apt-get provided you with. For example I get 1.11.3

Now, the easiest way in my experience to get the python bindings in a venv is using pygdal. The trick is to get the right version! To do so, activate your virtual environment and run

pip install pygdal==1.11.3

but replace the version with whatever you got from gdal-config --version. Note: you may get an error that says

Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement pygdal==1.11.3 (from versions: 1.8.1.0, 1.8.1.1, 1.8.1.2, 1.8.1.3, 1.9.2.0, 1.9.2.1, 1.9.2.3, 1.10.0.0, 1.10.0.1, 1.10.0.3, 1.10.1.0, 1.10.1.1, 1.10.1.3, 1.11.0.0, 1.11.0.1, 1.11.0.3, 1.11.1.0, 1.11.1.1, 1.11.1.3, 1.11.2.1, 1.11.2.3, 1.11.3.3, 1.11.4.3, 2.1.0.3) No matching distribution found for pygdal==1.11.3

If that happens, run the pip install again but with the highest version that still matches. e.g. in this case you would run pip install pygdal==1.11.3.3

Once pygdal has been successfully installed, you should be able to call

>>> from osgeo import gdal

Please let me know if anything fails and I'll do what I can to adjust my instructions. Also, if you need help with Proj.4, GEOS, or Cartopy, I have some experience there too.

Zola

Thanks for the explanation. Especially for the "Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement pygdal==1.11.3 (from versions: ....)" error. – Solothurn

These instructions really helped me to get Kartograph.py working, thank you – Maxillary

Cheers mate. I think the mentioning the version worked for me! – Patchwork

Thanks, medley56 this was helpful – Sulfonal

Versions now contain four numbers: pip install pygdal==1.11.3.3 – Neilla

This worked for me on my ubuntu 18.04. Later, I'll need the same on my 20.04 servers. Will let you all know if this worked flawlessly there as well. – Betancourt

Answer 2

use pygdal

pd@asghar:~$sudo apt-get install python3-gdal 

pd@asghar:~$ virtualenv -p python3 test
Running virtualenv with interpreter /usr/bin/python3
Using base prefix '/usr'
New python executable in /home/pd/test/bin/python3
Also creating executable in /home/pd/test/bin/python
Installing setuptools, pip, wheel...done.

pd@asghar:~$  gdal-config --version
2.1.3
pd@asghar:~$ test/bin/pip install pygdal==2.1.3
Collecting pygdal==2.1.3
  Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement pygdal==2.1.3 (from versions: 1.8.1.0, 1.8.1.1, 1.8.1.2, 1.8.1.3, 1.9.2.0, 1.9.2.1, 1.9.2.3, 1.10.0.0, 1.10.0.1, 1.10.0.3, 1.10.1.0, 1.10.1.1, 1.10.1.3, 1.11.0.0, 1.11.0.1, 1.11.0.3, 1.11.1.0, 1.11.1.1, 1.11.1.3, 1.11.2.1, 1.11.2.3, 1.11.3.3, 1.11.4.3, 1.11.5.3, 2.0.0.3, 2.0.1.3, 2.0.2.3, 2.0.3.3, 2.1.0.3, 2.1.1.3, 2.1.2.3, 2.1.3.3, 2.2.0.3)
No matching distribution found for pygdal==2.1.3
pd@asghar:~$ test/bin/pip install pygdal==2.1.3.3
Collecting pygdal==2.1.3.3
Collecting numpy>=1.0.0 (from pygdal==2.1.3.3)
  Using cached numpy-1.13.1-cp35-cp35m-manylinux1_x86_64.whl
Installing collected packages: numpy, pygdal
Successfully installed numpy-1.13.1 pygdal-2.1.3.3
pd@asghar:~$ source test/bin/activate
(test) pd@asghar:~$ python
Python 3.5.2 (default, Nov 17 2016, 17:05:23) 
[GCC 5.4.0 20160609] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from osgeo import gdal
>>> 

Handbook

It worked for me on OSX HighSIerra and Python3.6: pip install pygdal and then from osgeo import gdal. – Dynamoelectric

Answer 3

On MacOS, first do brew install:

brew install gdal

Then do pip install:

pip install gdal

Purity

No, this is not working with virtualenv. To do so, you have to link. So: brew tap osgeo/osgeo4mac then brew install osgeo-gdal && brew install osgeo-gdal-python finally brew link osgeo-gdal --force && brew link osgeo-gdal-python --force. Then you can pip install gdal in any virtualenv. – Canonicity