[postgis-users] PostgreSQL geometric data types vs GEOMETRY data type

[Peter Len]

I am using PostgreSQL 9.1 with PostGIS.  I am still doing a lot of documentation reading but have the following question....  PostgreSQL comes with some default geometric datatypes like POINT and POLYGON.  I created a couple of tables with these types and added some data.  After installing PostGIS, I came to find an example of creating a table with a GEOMETRY column.  It then went on to show the use of the PostGIS ST_GeomFromText method.  That worked fine on my test table that I created with the GEOMETRY(Point) data type but did not work on the table with just the POINT data type.  So.....  to use the PostGIS methods/functions, do the spatial columns need to be defined as GEOMETRY / GEOGRAPHY rather than the PostgreSQL data types of POINT, POLYGON, etc?

Thanks - Peter