Bug 2417148 - GDAL Removal Caused Missing Functionality
Summary: GDAL Removal Caused Missing Functionality
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: Fedora EPEL
Classification: Fedora
Component: gdal
Version: epel9
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: markusN
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2025-11-25 21:10 UTC by 5mhjx1clu
Modified: 2026-01-07 14:57 UTC (History)
9 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed:
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description 5mhjx1clu 2025-11-25 21:10:12 UTC
NOTE: I tried posting a comment here (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi/show_bug.cgi?id=2376349) first, but the site would time out each time I tried to leave a comment.

Description of problem:
The RHEL 9 version of gdal meant to replace the recently removed EPEL 9 version of gdal appears to have a lot less functionality than the EPEL 9 version had. The recently removed EPEL 9 packages supported 84 different raster drivers; the current RHEL 9 packages appear to support only 2 raster drivers.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
The recently removed EPEL 9 package: gdal-3.4.3-3.el9
The current RHEL 9 package: gdal-3.10.3-3.el9

How reproducible:
Consistently reproducible.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install RHEL 9 gdal (gdal-3.10.3-3.el9)
sudo dnf install gdal
2. Download a 3D elevation GeoTIFF file from USGS, e.g., https://prd-tnm.s3.amazonaws.com/StagedProducts/Elevation/13/TIFF/historical/n55w160/USGS_13_n55w160_20191217.tif. Alternatively, go to https://apps.nationalmap.gov/downloader/, select "Elevation Products", use the map to zoom in on an area of interest in the United States, then search and download a file of interest.
3. Run this command (modify the file name if needed): /usr/bin/gdal_translate -ot Float32 -of EHdr -a_nodata -9999 ~/Downloads/USGS_13_n55w160_20191217.tif ~/Downloads/USGS_13_n55w160_20191217.flt

Actual results (gdal-3.10.3-3.el9):
Output driver `EHdr' not recognised.
The following format drivers are configured and support output:
  VRT: Virtual Raster
  MEM: In Memory Raster

Expected results (gdal-3.4.3-3.el9):
Input file size is 10812, 10812
0...10...20...30...40...50...60...70...80...90...100 - done.

Additional info:
According to these pages, EHdr should be included by default.
https://gdal.org/en/stable/drivers/raster/index.html
https://gdal.org/en/stable/drivers/raster/ehdr.html

With gdal-3.4.3-3.el9 installed:

gdal_translate --long-usage
Usage: gdal_translate [--help-general] [--long-usage]
       [-ot {Byte/Int16/UInt16/UInt32/Int32/Float32/Float64/
             CInt16/CInt32/CFloat32/CFloat64}] [-strict]
       [-if format]* [-of format]
       [-b band] [-mask band] [-expand {gray|rgb|rgba}]
       [-outsize xsize[%]|0 ysize[%]|0] [-tr xres yres]
       [-r {nearest,bilinear,cubic,cubicspline,lanczos,average,mode}]
       [-unscale] [-scale[_bn] [src_min src_max [dst_min dst_max]]]* [-exponent[_bn] exp_val]*
       [-srcwin xoff yoff xsize ysize] [-epo] [-eco]
       [-projwin ulx uly lrx lry] [-projwin_srs srs_def]
       [-a_srs srs_def] [-a_coord_epoch epoch]
       [-a_ullr ulx uly lrx lry] [-a_nodata value]
       [-a_scale value] [-a_offset value]
       [-nogcp] [-gcp pixel line easting northing [elevation]]*
       |-colorinterp{_bn} {red|green|blue|alpha|gray|undefined}]
       |-colorinterp {red|green|blue|alpha|gray|undefined},...]
       [-mo "META-TAG=VALUE"]* [-q] [-sds]
       [-co "NAME=VALUE"]* [-stats] [-norat] [-noxmp]
       [-oo NAME=VALUE]*
       src_dataset dst_dataset

GDAL 3.4.3, released 2022/04/22

The following format drivers are configured and support output:
  VRT: Virtual Raster
  GTiff: GeoTIFF
  COG: Cloud optimized GeoTIFF generator
  NITF: National Imagery Transmission Format
  HFA: Erdas Imagine Images (.img)
  ELAS: ELAS
  AAIGrid: Arc/Info ASCII Grid
  DTED: DTED Elevation Raster
  PNG: Portable Network Graphics
  GTA: Generic Tagged Arrays (.gta)
  JPEG: JPEG JFIF
  MEM: In Memory Raster
  GIF: Graphics Interchange Format (.gif)
  FITS: Flexible Image Transport System
  XPM: X11 PixMap Format
  BMP: MS Windows Device Independent Bitmap
  PCIDSK: PCIDSK Database File
  PCRaster: PCRaster Raster File
  ILWIS: ILWIS Raster Map
  SGI: SGI Image File Format 1.0
  SRTMHGT: SRTMHGT File Format
  Leveller: Leveller heightfield
  Terragen: Terragen heightfield
  GMT: GMT NetCDF Grid Format
  netCDF: Network Common Data Format
  HDF4Image: HDF4 Dataset
  ISIS3: USGS Astrogeology ISIS cube (Version 3)
  ISIS2: USGS Astrogeology ISIS cube (Version 2)
  PDS4: NASA Planetary Data System 4
  VICAR: MIPL VICAR file
  ERS: ERMapper .ers Labelled
  JP2OpenJPEG: JPEG-2000 driver based on OpenJPEG library
  FIT: FIT Image
  GRIB: GRIdded Binary (.grb, .grb2)
  JPEG2000: JPEG-2000 part 1 (ISO/IEC 15444-1), based on Jasper library
  RMF: Raster Matrix Format
  WMS: OGC Web Map Service
  RST: Idrisi Raster A.1
  INGR: Intergraph Raster
  GSAG: Golden Software ASCII Grid (.grd)
  GSBG: Golden Software Binary Grid (.grd)
  GS7BG: Golden Software 7 Binary Grid (.grd)
  R: R Object Data Store
  KMLSUPEROVERLAY: Kml Super Overlay
  WEBP: WEBP
  PDF: Geospatial PDF
  Rasterlite: Rasterlite
  MBTiles: MBTiles
  CALS: CALS (Type 1)
  WMTS: OGC Web Map Tile Service
  MRF: Meta Raster Format
  PNM: Portable Pixmap Format (netpbm)
  PAux: PCI .aux Labelled
  MFF: Vexcel MFF Raster
  MFF2: Vexcel MFF2 (HKV) Raster
  BT: VTP .bt (Binary Terrain) 1.3 Format
  LAN: Erdas .LAN/.GIS
  IDA: Image Data and Analysis
  LCP: FARSITE v.4 Landscape File (.lcp)
  GTX: NOAA Vertical Datum .GTX
  NTv2: NTv2 Datum Grid Shift
  CTable2: CTable2 Datum Grid Shift
  KRO: KOLOR Raw
  ROI_PAC: ROI_PAC raster
  RRASTER: R Raster
  BYN: Natural Resources Canada's Geoid
  ARG: Azavea Raster Grid format
  USGSDEM: USGS Optional ASCII DEM (and CDED)
  BAG: Bathymetry Attributed Grid
  NWT_GRD: Northwood Numeric Grid Format .grd/.tab
  ADRG: ARC Digitized Raster Graphics
  BLX: Magellan topo (.blx)
  PostGISRaster: PostGIS Raster driver
  SAGA: SAGA GIS Binary Grid (.sdat, .sg-grd-z)
  XYZ: ASCII Gridded XYZ
  HF2: HF2/HFZ heightfield raster
  ZMap: ZMap Plus Grid
  SIGDEM: Scaled Integer Gridded DEM .sigdem
  GPKG: GeoPackage
  NGW: NextGIS Web
  ENVI: ENVI .hdr Labelled
  EHdr: ESRI .hdr Labelled
  ISCE: ISCE raster
  Zarr: Zarr

Comment 1 Nathan M. 2025-12-02 17:32:58 UTC
Seeing the same issues here which has caused us to revert back to 3.4.3. However, since the primary gdal package was moved from EPEL to RHEL appstream, this perhaps should be posted in that group instead.

Similar example when looking for geotiff support:

gdal-3.4.3-3.el9.x86_64
$ ldd `which gdalinfo` | grep geotiff
        libgeotiff.so.5 => /lib64/libgeotiff.so.5 (0x00007fb7879ca000)


gdal-3.10.3-3.el9.x86_64
$ ldd `which gdalinfo` | grep geotiff
(empty)

In fact, 3.10.3 is only linked with 53 libs while 3.4.3 has 103.

Comment 2 Chris Webster 2025-12-07 16:07:21 UTC
Same issue.  Reproduce:

wget -nv https://mrms.ncep.noaa.gov/data/RIDGEII/L2/CONUS/CREF_QCD//CONUS_L2_CREF_QCD_20251207_144436.tif.gz -O CONUS_L2_CREF_QCD_20251207_144436.tif.gz
gunzip CONUS_L2_CREF_QCD_20251207_144436.tif.gz
gdalwarp CONUS_L2_CREF_QCD_20251207_144436.tif tmp_radar.tiff

ERROR 4: `CONUS_L2_CREF_QCD_20251207_144436.tif' not recognized as being in a supported file format.
ERROR 4: Failed to open source file CONUS_L2_CREF_QCD_20251207_144436.tif

Comment 3 Nathan M. 2025-12-08 19:56:26 UTC
There is more activity about issue this on the RedHat forums:

https://issues.redhat.com/browse/RHEL-107107
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/RHEL-134116
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/RHEL-134206

Here is the resulting comment in case you don't have redhat accounts:
"Thank you for your report, but unfortunately, I have to state that CMake isn't misconfigured; it's configured properly. I understand that some drivers are missing in the CS/RHEL repositories, but they were not intended to be added. We have prepared a gdal-epel package that should provide more drivers. Please try it and let me know if it helps."

I'm stuck on finding this new gdal-epel package. Maybe my repo mirrors haven't synced up yet, but when I run "dnf search gdal-epel" I don't see any results yet. This whole gdal switchover has been poorly planned.

Comment 4 5mhjx1clu 2025-12-08 22:06:08 UTC
https://packages.fedoraproject.org/pkgs/gdal-epel/

I too cannot find 'gdal-epel' as its own package, but I do see its subpackages:

$ sudo dnf list --available gdal* | grep epel
gdal-java.x86_64               3.10.3-7.el9 epel                                               
gdal-javadoc.noarch            3.10.3-7.el9 epel                                               
gdal-python-tools.x86_64       3.10.3-7.el9 epel

There is a new unofficial repo that tries to restore driver support. I am able to install it with no problem on CentOS Stream 9 alongside appstream's minimized gdal, but I encounter runtime errors that I have not been able to reproduce on my own source builds of gdal.

https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/pkhartsk/gdal-extras/

Comment 5 Devrim Gündüz 2025-12-12 16:16:54 UTC
FWIW PostgreSQL RPM repository provides support for way many more drivers and it is always up2date: https://yum.postgresql.org/

Comment 6 Nathan M. 2025-12-12 19:40:32 UTC
Adding another repository isn't a good fix in my opinion, especially since other programs in EPEL already rely on gdal such as QGIS.

Comment 7 John Jasen 2026-01-07 14:57:54 UTC
We have also encountered problems with this change, as now components relying on GDAL cannot parse GeoTIFF or TIFF files.


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