[Courses] [Postgresql] Installing PostgreSQL and Assignments

[Catherine Devlin]

On Nov 25, 2007 6:21 PM, Michelle Murrain <michelle at murrain.net> wrote:

>    * Tell us all how it went? Any snags? Did you install it on a
> different platform (like BSD for instance?)

Long ago, I'd installed the postgresql 8.2 binary from the Ubuntu
(Gutsy Gibbon) repository.  That was extremely easy.

So I installed 8.3 from source, which gives me shaky knees, but the
course's directions were good, and I seemed to get through it OK.  The
only temporary puzzles were

- the install instructions said that PL/Python would require that
libpython be a shared library, and referred to rebuilding Python from
*its* source to make it so.  Eek!  Running 'locate libpython' showed
me /usr/lib/libpython2.5.so, which I *think* means I meet this
requirement, so I just plunged ahead.  I guess I won't really know how
it worked until I actually try using some PL/Python.

- complaints during the install prompted me to apt-get install xml2
and readline, which stopped the complaining.

- the 8.2 postmaster, which I wanted to leave running, had already
claimed port 5432.  (I didn't remember that port number at first, but
eventually figured out that "netstat -a | grep postgres" would show
me.)  Then adding "-p 5433" when starting the server (and to
subsequent 8.3 commands accessing the database) moves everything
safely over to port 5433.  If I were going to get serious about using
8.3 regularly, I'd want to make scripts to include -p 5433
automatically, but I haven't gotten around to that yet.

Thanks!  Having fun so far!
-- 
- Catherine
http://catherinedevlin.blogspot.com/