[postgis-users] Cannot install 1.4.0 as non-root user

[Mark Cave-Ayland]

Reid Priedhorsky wrote:

Hi Reid,

> I should have clarified. We are using the system Postgres and installing 
> PostGIS and GEOS ourselves. In the past (1.3.5), we just compiled 
> PostGIS with --prefix, --with-geos, and --with-pgsql* and it worked 
> great, just like any other GNU-style "configure" software. Now... ????
> 
> (As an aside, it was also very frustrating that --prefix was silently 
> ignored instead of failing at configure time with a coherent error 
> message. We spent over an hour tracking that down.)

Thanks for the extra information.

> We're on Ubuntu Hardy.
> 
> * --with-pgsql was needed because we are on Postgres 8.2 but some of the 
> 8.3 stuff is also installed because of unrelated dependencies. But in 
> 1.4, install wants to put stuff in the 8.3 directories even though 
> configure apparently found 8.2 with --with-pgconfig. So I don't see how 
> we can install 1.4 even if we did have root.

This sounds like the real problem here. I believe there is a bug in 
PostgreSQL 8.2's PGXS Makefile which means that it can pick the wrong 
pg_config if you have multiple versions in PATH. The quick fix is to 
temporarily override PATH when running "make" on PostGIS so that the 
directory containing the pg_config you really want to use is listed 
first like this:

PATH=/path/to/8.2/install:$PATH make install


HTH,

Mark.

-- 
Mark Cave-Ayland - Senior Technical Architect
PostgreSQL - PostGIS
Sirius Corporation plc - control through freedom
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