Joerg Brandt <jbrandt(at)math(dot)uni-bremen(dot)de> writes:
> Is the following a bug or my mistake -- any hints?
Looks like a problem all right ... which PG version is this exactly?
>> Initializing pg_shadow.
> initdb failed.
> Removing temp file /tmp/initdb.11243.
Unfortunately initdb shoves all the output from the later steps straight
to /dev/null, so you can't see what went wrong here. Look in the initdb
script and remove the "-o /dev/null" from PGSQL_OPT and the >/dev/null
from the commands that set up pg_shadow, so that we can get more info.
regards, tom lane