Installing PostGIS was actually much easier than re-installing Postgres. I did discover there are a couple of tricks to it, though:
- The steps for compiling are pretty straightforward – ./configure, make, make install, make check. However, the documentation makes it seem like make check comes before make install, when it actually comes after.
- The default Postgres install grants all rights to the user postgres. Installing PostGIS requires administrative rights at some point (or at least the ability to modify some system directories), which the postgres user doesn’t have by default. My default user had not been granted any rights in Postgres. It wound up being easier to temporarily add the user postgres to the admin group, run the full compile/install from the postgres home directory, then remove the user from the group when done.
The make check and user rights/Postgres rights issues are really straightforward to deal with, almost non-issues, but they did cost me a fair amount of head-scratching time. Make check was really worth figuring out. It’s a great utility for verifying your PostGIS install and ensuring that the various functions you’re looking for (GeoJSON support, in my case) are there and working.