Error: gdal-config not found while installing R dependent packages whereas gdal is installed

Question

Please point out the point that I am missing:

openSUSE 11.3

---

xx@linux-y3pi:~/Desktop/R> sudo R CMD INSTALL rgdal_0.7-12.tar.gz  root's password: * installing to library ‘/usr/lib64/R/library’ * installing *source* package ‘rgdal’ ... ** package ‘rgdal’ successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked configure: gdal-config: gdal-config checking gdal-config usability... ./configure: line 1353: gdal-config: command not found no Error: gdal-config not found The gdal-config script distributed with GDAL could not be found. If you have not installed the GDAL libraries, you can download the source from  http://www.gdal.org/ If you have installed the GDAL libraries, then make sure that gdal-config is in your path. Try typing gdal-config at a shell prompt and see if it runs. If not, use:  --configure-args='--with-gdal-config=/usr/local/bin/gdal-config' with appropriate values for your installation.  ERROR: configuration failed for package ‘rgdal’ * removing ‘/usr/lib64/R/library/rgdal’ 

---

xx@linux-y3pi:~/Desktop/R> whereis gdal-config gdal-config: /usr/local/bin/gdal-config  xx@linux-y3pi:~/Desktop/R> gdal-config  Usage: gdal-config [OPTIONS] Options:  [--prefix[=DIR]]  [--libs]  [--dep-libs]  [--cflags]  [--datadir]  [--version]  [--ogr-enabled]  [--formats]  xx@linux-y3pi:~/Desktop/R> 

---

> sessionInfo() R version 2.15.1 (2012-06-22) Platform: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (64-bit)  locale:  [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C                [3] LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8      [5] LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8     [7] LC_PAPER=C                 LC_NAME=C                   [9] LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C             [11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C         attached base packages: [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base      >  

---

xx@linux-y3pi:~/Desktop/R> gdal-config --version 1.9.0  xx@linux-y3pi:~/Desktop/R> proj Rel. 4.8.0, 6 March 2012 usage: proj [ -beEfiIlormsStTvVwW [args] ] [ +opts[=arg] ] [ files ] 

---

linux-y3pi:~ # $PATH bash: /home/xx/qtsdk-2010.05/qt/bin/:/home/xx/qtsdk-2010.05/bin:/home/xx/qtsdk-2010.05/qt/bin:/home/xx/qtsdk-2010.05/qt/bin/:/home/xx/qtsdk-2010.05/bin:/usr/lib64/mpi/gcc/openmpi/bin:/home/xx/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/games: No such file or directory 

Answer 1

In Ubuntu 18.04

I fixed this by sudo apt install libgdal-dev Hope someone find this helpful. Some above answers seems to be outdated and lengthy.

In earlier versions (which had apt-get)

sudo apt-get install libgdal-dev

Answer 2

You need the -dev package with headers and shared library links for development besides the normal package for deployment. Two different use cases as far as the distro is concerned.

On my distribution:

edd@max:/tmp$ dpkg -l | grep gdal | cut -c-72 ii  libgdal1-1.7.0                                1.7.3-6ubuntu3         ii  libgdal1-dev                                  1.7.3-6ubuntu3         edd@max:/tmp$  

and R CMD INSTALL rgdal_0.7-8.tar.gz works just fine as you would expect from a CRAN package given all the build-time checks at CRAN.

Update late 2016: As @JoshO'Brien points out in the comment

Minor update: Here in 2016, running Ubuntu 14.04.2, libgdal1h seems to have replaced libgdal1(though libgdal1-dev is still needed). At least I get an error to that effect when I attempted to apt-get install libgdal1

For Ubuntu 16.04 the corresponding line would be
sudo apt-get install libgdal1i

Such renaming of upstream libraries is common; something such as apt-cache search libgdal can help locate the current package names. The important key though is that the "abstract" development package libgdal-dev is all that is needed to build as it pulls the "concrete" current run-time package (here: libgdal1i) in via a dependency.