I'm about to install Postgres 7.2. Is there any difference between
installing 7.1.3 and 7.2? Would it be safe to follow the same
instructions that are posted for 7.1.3?
(https://openacs.org/doc/openacs-4/postgres.html)?
Yup, those directions work fine. Do watch out, however, when you get to installing the OpenFTS driver. The gotchas are fairly well documented down in the reader's comments section.
FWIW if you're using Debian, woody installs PG 7.2.1 and this works fine with OACS 4.5. You don't need to compile PG yourself and you get to stay within Debian's incomparable upgrade system.
Too bad Don is off with the hawks this week; he usually seems to know most about all the inner goings-on with PG. I personally can vouch for 7.2.1 since that's in the current woody distro.
There is an unhappy functionality bug in 7.2 which makes 7.2.1 far nicer
(sequence numbers go backwards after a crash). 7.2.2 fixes a couple of
security bugs and doesn't require a dump/restore.