>What does the "dump" do? I have been just tarring the
>/usr/local/pgsql/data/base/ directory and burning that onto a CD...
pg_dump writes to stdout the sql code needed to recreate the database. As I
remember there are a couple of catches (it does not recreate views?...).
To restore the database, start with a blank database and do:
psql dbname < mydatabase.db