staring pgsql on fedora 8

Hello everyone :-) ,
I've just started to get to grips with
pgsql and am facing a small issue. I would appreciate any pointers /
ideas about how to get around it :-) .

When I installed FC8 on my machine, I installed the pgsql package via
the package installer, and then tried to start the service by using
the service manager. The message I got was "you need to initalize the
cluster first run service postgresql initdb"

When I use this command $> service postgresql initdb nothing really
happens. The display says, initializing database and then nothing.
I've waited for 10 minutes at a stretch and CPU/memory utilization
doesn't seem to be going out of the window implying some major
processing of some sort..!

If I use $>service postgresql restart I get Stopping postgresql
service: and then nothing, the processing does not finish.

Extra info: I ran the command as root, I plan to change to another
user when I get the db going to create and use the db.

Thanks in advance for any help,
-A