Re: Service startup - troubleshooting

> I imagine the configuration was mangled somewhere down the line.
> Perhaps I need to reinstall Ubuntu, though it's not something I look
> forward to (I already tried uninstalling Postgres and wiping away all
> references to it prior to my last install).
>
> Thanks for taking a look!
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> myuser(at)mycomputer:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql-8.1 status
> Password:
> Version Cluster Port Status Owner Data
> directory Log file

This shows that you do not have a cluster.

try running

sudo pg_createcluster 8.1 main

> myuser(at)mycomputer:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql-8.1 start -D /usr/
> local/pgsql/data

sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql-8.1 start

is all you should need. Give that a try first, and the confirm you actually
have a cluster with

sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql-8.1 status

> myuser(at)mycomputer:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql-8.1 status
> Version Cluster Port Status Owner Data
> directory Log file
> myuser(at)mycomputer:~$ ls -a /var/log/postgresql
> . ..

That seems strange. It appears that your installation is missing something.

What do you get from :

dpkg -l *postgresql*

Andy