GDAL/OGR is, hands down, the definitive toolset for Getting Things Done geospatially. It's a huge time saver, but it can take a lot of time to sort through all the possible installation methods. Once you figure it out, it's relatively painless; here's the process that works for me. Installation There are many, many ways to get GDAL/OGR for Ubuntu: I prefer using a reliable PPA that is updated freq