starting postmaster

Good Afternoon,

I installed postgresql this morning and appears to have installed ok.

created a user postgres.

used the commands from the INSTALL and they failed.

Changed to /usr/local/pgsql/bin

postmaster appears aas a symbolic link that dosen't work

tried postgres and got the "correct" error

tried scripting the session but denied! (root isn't allowed to start the
postmaster sono point trying)

tried postgres -D /user/local/pgsql/data

and got

DEBUG: Data Base System is starting up at Mon Jan 15 13:17:30 2001
FATAL 2: Open("/usr/local/pgsql/data//pg_control") failed: 2
FATAL 2: Open("/usr/local/pgsql/data//pg_control") failed: 2

then tried

nohup postgres -D /user/local/pgsql/data </dev/null >>server.log 2>>1 &

postgres does not know where to find the database system data. You must
specify the directory that contains the database system either by
specifying the -D invocation option or by setting the PGDATA environment
variable.

Help would be appreciated!

Thanks

Ashley