For location based service, I try to use postgresql with postgis.

You can download postgis from here.

http://postgis.net/source

It is recommended that you need to download and compile yourself since there are many packages dependencies need to be done.

Here is a tutorial which is very handy if you are using ubuntu12.04/mint13 or its derived ones.

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http://trac.osgeo.org/postgis/wiki/UsersWikiPostGIS20Ubuntu1204src

How to install PostGIS 2.0 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (precise) from source

Prerequisites

Several components are needed, which can either be built from source or installed from pre-built packages, as shown below.

Install prerequisite packages using:

sudo apt-get install build-essential postgresql-9.1 postgresql-server-dev-9.1 libxml2-dev libproj-dev libjson0-dev xsltproc docbook-xsl docbook-mathml

Optional package for raster support (this is required if you want to build the PostgreSQL extensions):

sudo apt-get install libgdal1-dev

Build GEOS 3.3.x

PostGIS 2.0 requires GEOS >= 3.3.2 for topology support, however Ubuntu 12.04 only has GEOS 3.2.2 available in packages, so it needs to be built from source. If you don‘t need topology, you don‘t need to build this component, but it is highly recommended.

There are multiple ways to build GEOS, but this is the simplest:

wget http://download.osgeo.org/geos/geos-3.3.9.tar.bz2
tar xfj geos-3.3.9.tar.bz2
cd geos-3.3.9
./configure
make
sudo make install
cd ..

[NEW ADDED]

Since there will be another package which needs a higher version.

So you need to install    gdal-config ( version 1.8.0+). By default ubuntu 12.04 is of 1.7.3 

http://www.gdal.org/

download the source codes and compile as you want.

cd {the_souce_codes_folder}

sudo ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/

sudo make

sudo make install

sudo ldconfig

Then you may compile the postgis package.

Build PostGIS

wget http://download.osgeo.org/postgis/source/postgis-2.0.6.tar.gz
tar xfz postgis-2.0.6.tar.gz
cd postgis-2.0.6

PostGIS 2.0 can be configured to disable topology or raster components, using the configure flags --without-raster and/or --without-topology. The default is to build both. Note that raster is required for the extension installation method for PostgreSQL.

./configure
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
sudo make comments-install

Lastly, enable the command-line tools to work from your shell:

sudo ln -sf /usr/share/postgresql-common/pg_wrapper /usr/local/bin/shp2pgsql
sudo ln -sf /usr/share/postgresql-common/pg_wrapper /usr/local/bin/pgsql2shp
sudo ln -sf /usr/share/postgresql-common/pg_wrapper /usr/local/bin/raster2pgsql

Spatially enabling a database

With PostgreSQL 9.1, there are two methods to add PostGIS functionality to a database: using extensions, or using enabler scripts.

PostGIS Extension for PostgreSQL

Spatially enabling a database using extensions is a new feature of PostgreSQL 9.1.

Connect to your database using pgAdmin or psql, and run the following commands. To add postgis with raster support:

CREATE EXTENSION postgis;

To add topology support, a second extension can be created on the database:

CREATE EXTENSION postgis_topology;

Enabler Scripts / Template

Enabler scripts can be used to either build a template, or directly spatially enable a database. This method is older than the extension method, but is required if the raster support is not built.

The following example creates a template, which can be re-used for creating multiple spatially-enabled databases. Or if you just want to make one spatially enabled database, you can modify the commands for your needs.

PostGIS:

sudo -u postgres createdb template_postgis
sudo -u postgres psql -d template_postgis -c "UPDATE pg_database SET datistemplate=true WHERE datname=‘template_postgis‘"
sudo -u postgres psql -d template_postgis -f /usr/share/postgresql/9.1/contrib/postgis-2.0/postgis.sql
sudo -u postgres psql -d template_postgis -f /usr/share/postgresql/9.1/contrib/postgis-2.0/spatial_ref_sys.sql
sudo -u postgres psql -d template_postgis -f /usr/share/postgresql/9.1/contrib/postgis-2.0/postgis_comments.sql

with raster support:

sudo -u postgres psql -d template_postgis -f /usr/share/postgresql/9.1/contrib/postgis-2.0/rtpostgis.sql
sudo -u postgres psql -d template_postgis -f /usr/share/postgresql/9.1/contrib/postgis-2.0/raster_comments.sql

with topology support:

sudo -u postgres psql -d template_postgis -f /usr/share/postgresql/9.1/contrib/postgis-2.0/topology.sql
sudo -u postgres psql -d template_postgis -f /usr/share/postgresql/9.1/contrib/postgis-2.0/topology_comments.sql

See also

•  https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PostgreSQL

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 In the database console, try these!!

Connect to your database with psql or PgAdmin. Run the following SQL:

-- Enable PostGIS (includes raster)
CREATE EXTENSION postgis;
-- Enable Topology
CREATE EXTENSION postgis_topology;
-- fuzzy matching needed for Tiger
CREATE EXTENSION fuzzystrmatch;
-- Enable US Tiger Geocoder
CREATE EXTENSION postgis_tiger_geocoder;

For spatial objects!

-- Create table with spatial column
CREATE TABLE mytable ( 
  id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
  geom GEOMETRY(Point, 26910),
  name VARCHAR(128)
); 
 
-- Add a spatial index
CREATE INDEX mytable_gix
  ON mytable 
  USING GIST (geom); 
 
-- Add a point
INSERT INTO mytable (geom) VALUES (
  ST_GeomFromText(‘POINT(0 0)‘, 26910)
);
 
-- Query for nearby points
SELECT id, name
FROM mytable
WHERE ST_DWithin(
  geom, 
  ST_GeomFromText(‘POINT(0 0)‘, 26910),
  1000
); 

If you system alerts that "

gis=# create extension fuzzystrmatch;
ERROR: could not open extension control file "/usr/share/postgresql/9.1/extension/fuzzystrmatch.control": No such file or directory

"

, try to 

sudo apt-get install postgresql-contrib-9.1 -y

then , you will see something:

gis=# create extension fuzzystrmatch;
CREATE EXTENSION
gis=# create extension postgis_tiger_geocoder;
CREATE EXTENSION
gis=# 

notice the ‘gis‘ is the name of the database.