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title: The PostgreSQL RPM repository needs a lot less EPEL now
description: The PostgreSQL RPM repository (PGDG) has removed most of its EPEL dependencies on RHEL 8, 9 and 10. The GIS stack, popular extensions and almost all Python...
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og:description: The PostgreSQL RPM repository (PGDG) has removed most of its EPEL dependencies on RHEL 8, 9 and 10. The GIS stack, popular extensions and almost all Python...
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# The PostgreSQL RPM repository needs a lot less EPEL now

**[Planet PostgreSQL](https://daily.dev/sources/planet-postgresql)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments

## Summary

The PostgreSQL RPM repository (PGDG) has removed most of its EPEL dependencies on RHEL 8, 9 and 10. The GIS stack, popular extensions and almost all Python tools now install from PGDG and OS repositories alone. GDAL's 20-plus EPEL libraries, including hdf5 and Apache Arrow, are now bundled at their latest upstream versions, such as Arrow 26 which adds a Parquet driver. On RHEL 10, about 35 Python modules like boto3, pydantic, matplotlib and pandas are now built in-house. New libraries install under prefixes like `/usr/pgdg-hdf5` via rpath so they don't conflict with EPEL. A handful of tools, like plr and pgloader, still require EPEL for R or FreeTDS.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://postgr.es/p/9A9>

## Questions this post answers

### Why does installing PostgreSQL packages on RHEL require enabling the EPEL repository?

Historically, packages like PostGIS, pgBackRest, pgcli, patroni, pg_statviz and ora2pg pulled at least one dependency from EPEL. This caused problems because some sites cannot enable EPEL at all, EPEL's own release lifecycle could break packages built against it, and EPEL often shipped old library versions with known CVEs, such as hdf5 1.10/1.12 and Apache Arrow 8/9 on EPEL 8 and 9.

_Teams locking down RHEL repos to vendor-only sources can track PostgreSQL packaging changes like this on daily.dev._

### How do I install PostGIS and the GDAL GIS stack on RHEL without enabling EPEL?

PostGIS 3.3 to 3.7, GDAL, SFCGAL, osm2pgsql and pointcloud no longer need EPEL on any RHEL version. GDAL's 20-plus former EPEL libraries, including hdf5, netCDF, cfitsio, Apache Arrow and libkml, are now built and shipped directly in the PGDG repository at their latest upstream versions, including Arrow 26 which adds GDAL's Parquet driver.

_Anyone standardizing a GIS or geospatial PostgreSQL stack can follow packaging updates like this on daily.dev._

### How do PGDG's new bundled libraries avoid conflicting with EPEL's versions of the same packages on RHEL?

Most new libraries install under their own prefix, such as `/usr/pgdg-hdf5`, `/usr/pgdg-libarrow` or `/usr/pgdg-libssh2`, and PGDG packages locate them via rpath. There are no `ld.so.conf.d` entries and the libraries don't appear in RPM provides, so EPEL-installed software keeps using EPEL's libraries while PGDG packages use their own, with EPEL left enabled if desired.

_Admins juggling overlapping repositories can keep up with dependency-isolation approaches like this via daily.dev._

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- [GDAL 3.4 package: Full-featured GIS functionality on RHEL](https://daily.dev/posts/gdal-3-4-package-full-featured-gis-functionality-on-rhel-bhurp0i1v) · Red Hat Developer · 0 upvotes · 0 comments
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---

Tags: [#postgresql](https://daily.dev/tags/postgresql)

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