no, DBI is not the only way. there is also a Perl interface
to PostgreSQL that comes as part of the PostgreSQL
distribution called Pg. if it was not installed by your
administrator, you'll have a harder time installing it than
DBI/DBD::Pg. try running
perl -MPg to see if you
have the Pg module installed.
as for not being able to install DBI because you are not
root, you should see How do I keep my own module/library directory?.
no version of Perl has DBI built-in (except perhaps a
specific port).
