This book concentrates on Unix systems with a focus on Linux in particular. Such servers have become increasingly popular for hosting databases for large and small companies. As such, we highly recommend that you use a virtual machine or development system running a recent copy of Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, or a variant such as CentOS or Scientific Linux.
You will also need a copy of PostgreSQL. If your chosen Linux distribution isn't keeping the included PostgreSQL packages sufficiently up to date, the PostgreSQL website maintains binaries for most popular distributions. You can find these at the following URL:
https://www.postgresql.org/download/
Users of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and its variants ...
