The ubuntu offers the GDAL package by default, but the package version is usually old. This note documents the step of installing the latest version of GDAL on Ubuntu system.

Test environment: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) 64-bit

Installation

The current version of GDAL package can be checked using apt-cache policy gdal-bin:

gdal-bin:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 3.0.4+dfsg-1build3
  Version table:
     3.0.4+dfsg-1build3 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/universe amd64 Packages

To update the GDAL package to the latest version, we can add the ubuntugis-unstable PPA to system:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntugis/ubuntugis-unstable
sudo apt update

The source list is located at: /etc/apt/sources.list.d, the candidate of GDAL package should be updated to the latest version:

gdal-bin:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 3.2.1+dfsg-1~focal0
  Version table:
     3.2.1+dfsg-1~focal0 500
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntugis/ubuntugis-unstable/ubuntu focal/main amd64 Packages
     3.0.4+dfsg-1build3 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/universe amd64 Packages

Install the latest GDAL package:

apt install gdal-bin

Check the version of installed package using gdalinfo --version and :

GDAL 3.2.1, released 2020/12/29

References

https://launchpad.net/~ubuntugis/+archive/ubuntu/ubuntugis-unstable