I've several systems with 8-24 GB of RAM running postgres and postgis.  I built 
postgres as a 64-bit executable to take advantage of the larger address space.  
As a rule for databases, they are memory hungry.  I generally follow:  
effective cache size, 50% RAM; shared_buffers, 25% RAM.  There are other PG 
tuning parameters available in performance docs/discussions on the web.

With only 2GB of RAM, the bit-width of postgres shouldn't matter, and your 
setting of 1.5 GB shmmax seems a little too large.  Try keeping it below 1.25 
GB, or even 1 GB.  Since you said this is only a prototype, performance 
shouldn't be a top priority.  You also don't want to starve the OS of 
resources.  Consider starting with your postgres setting half or even a quarter 
of what I stated above.  Also, consider lowering the max_connections setting; 
each connection requires more shared memory.  This way you can also limit the 
size of your kernel resources.

You can also dynamically change the kernel parameters with `sysctl -w 
PARAMETER=VALUE` from the command line to find a setting you're comfortable 
with before committing it to /etc/sysctl.conf.  The only reason to have large 
memory space for postgres is to store as much of the database as possible in 
memory, i.e., faster access and less/no swapping.

As for the pgAdmin question, it's a good tool, but it ultimately comes down to 
what you're comfortable with.  I prefer the command line.

Hope that clears things up at least a bit.
-B-


--- Let us all bask in television's warm glowing warming glow ---
Scott Brunza           860.326.3637         scot...@sonalysts.com

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