Installing GCC correctly

Question

I'm writing this as an utter Ubuntu newbie. I want to run the script found on Save points to a shapefile with GDAL. But I get the following error, yes this error is similar to the question posted here. Stick with me.

Python 2.7.2+ (default, Oct  4 2011, 20:06:09) 
[GCC 4.6.1] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import point_store
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "point_store.py", line 3, in <module>
import osgeo.ogr
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/osgeo/__init__.py", line 21, in      
<module>
_gdal = swig_import_helper()
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/osgeo/__init__.py", line 17, in     
swig_import_helper
_mod = imp.load_module('_gdal', fp, pathname, description)
ImportError: /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/osgeo/_gdal.so: symbol  
VSIFTruncateL, version GDAL_1.8 not defined in file libgdal.so.1 with link 
time reference

After reading the question I reference above I tried this:

sudo pip install GDAL==1.8.1

And then I got the following error:

cc1plus: warning: command line option ‘-Wstrict-prototypes’ is valid for   
Ada/C/ObjC but not for C++ [enabled by default]
extensions/gdal_wrap.cpp:149:20: fatal error: Python.h: No such file or 
directory

compilation terminated.

error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1

Does anyone have an idea how I can get my gcc to happy fun times? There are lots of forum posts around about this error but I'm still looking for that "aha" moment.

Answer 1

On Ubuntu the safest way is always to rely on the package manager, then everything just works. I strongly recommend to install the GDAL Python bindings using apt-get instead of pip, try:

sudo apt-get install python-gdal