RE:

First of all, thank you very much for this detailed answer. (and also thanx
to Janet for asking :-] ) I am a postgresql newbie as well, and this is
very very helpful. I had been trying to get things to work under NT, but
decided to reboot to linux and try it there when I saw these detailed
instructions.

Fantastic stuff. Thank you so much Mr. Easter.

~
~ Maybe try getting postgresql-7.0.tar.gz. from www.postgresql.org. Then do
~ something like the following commands:
~
~ su -
~ groupadd postgres
~ adduser postgres

I found that on RedHat 6.1, I was only able to add a user or a group if I
was actually logged in as root. "su" didn't do it for me.

~ Note: make postgres user with default group postgres
~ cd /usr/local/src
~ tar -xvzf postgresql-7.0.tar.gz
~ cd postgresql-7.0
~ less INSTALL

cd /src

~ ./configure
~ --prefix=/usr/local/pgsql
~ --with-perl --with-tcl
~ --with-maxbackends=256
~ make
~ make install

cd ..

~ cd doc
~ make install
~ cd /usr/local
~ chown -R postgres:postgres pgsql
~ cd /etc
~ vi profile
~ Note: add /usr/local/pgsql/bin to PATH
~ add /usr/local/pgsql/man to MANPATH
~ set PGLIB=/usr/local/pgsql/lib
~ set PGDATA=/usr/local/pgsql/data
~ Then exit and log back in to take effect.

I found that this affected "my" environment variables, but it didn't affect
the environment variables for the postgres user i had created, so i added
these statements to the /home/postgres/.bashrc file. Is this good enough?
Or is there somewhere else that i should set these vars instead?

~ su - postgres
~ initdb

I got an error message here about needing to set PGDATA or use the --pgdata
switch (unfortunately i didn't paste the error message onto a floppy like i
thought i could so i could read it here in NT) -- i did make sure i had
created an empty data directory though

~ exit
~
~ Now you can start the database.

And that's as far as I got. I'll start it as soon as I'm sure I've got
everything right.

I'm presently trying the same (well,... similar) instructions on NT. The
obvious question is what to do about creating a user. On NT it just isn't
possible to su postgres
initdb
exit

So does that mean i just run it as myself? This is in a non-production
environment on my workstation, where I'm hoping to eventually be addressing
the database w/zope.

Again, I can't thank this list enough for all the great info i've picked up
while lurking,
~c

~ To start it, you can use pg_ctl
~ that comes
~ with postgresql, or you can make a script like the following
~ /etc/rc.d/init.d/postgresql:
~
~ #!/bin/sh
~ # See how we were called.
~ case "$1" in
~ start)
~ # Start daemons.
~ echo -n "Starting postgres Postmaster daemon:"
~ if [ -z "`pidof -s postmaster`" ]
~ then
~ su postgres -c "/usr/local/pgsql/bin/postmaster
~ -S -D /usr/local/pgsql/data &"
~ echo -n " postmaster"
~ else
~ echo -n " (already running)"
~ fi
~ echo
~ #touch /var/lock/subsys/postgres
~ ;;
~ stop)
~ # Stop daemons.
~ echo -n "Shutting down postgres Postmaster daemon: "
~ killall -TERM postmaster 2>/dev/null
~ killall -TERM postgres 2>/dev/null
~ echo postmaster postgres
~ rm -f /tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432
~ ;;
~ *)
~ echo "Usage: postgres {start|stop}"
~ exit 1
~ esac
~ exit 0
~
~ Now start the database:
~ /etc/rc.d/init.d/postgresql start
~ You will have to add this into your startup scripts.
~ /etc/rc.d/init.d/postgresql stop, can be put in your shutdown scripts.
~
~ Then do the following with the server started:
~
~ su - postgres
~ createuser <some username>
~ Do this for each user you will have.
~
~ Once you have your user created, you can login to the user and run:
~
~ createdb
~ Note: creates a database called <username> by default.
~ psql
~ Note: connect to your <username> database by default.
~
~ At this point you'll be able to start using SQL and create tables etc.
~ I think these instructions are ok. Hope it helps.
~

sorry for the waste of bandwidth but that stuff is just too valuable to snip
:-]