Yes, I setup a postgres instance a few weeks ago, so that I could render the local area with nik4.py. Lucky for me I already had mapnik and node installed and working, so getting CartoCSS and nik4.py running wasn't a big deal.
I was wondering if you had a specific setup in mind when you said 'just generate', as I did not find the process to be particularly trivial, even for a smaller region (and I do have experience messing around with arcane syntax and command lines).
