[plug] Calling all DB guru's

[Michael Hunt]

Hi ya all,

To all those DB admin types out there I have got some questions about
setting up postgress on a Red Hat 6.0 box to use with Twig (on a Side note I
saw the name Leon Brooks turn up in a few of the config files !!!!). I know
I can use mysql for this but I wanted :

1. To play with a true RDBMS (whatever that means)
2. It came with my Red Hat so it must be good !!!
3. I can't afford (legally) a copy of Oracle.
4. The mysql ODBC drivers crash out our Notes server (this is for a
different app) and my boss wants me to look at using postgress to see if it
has the same problem.

Ok so all that sarcasm put aside I try to run postgress as a service and I
get the following error message

[root at myhost a directory]# /etc/rc.d/init.d/postgresql start
Starting postgresql service:
/usr/bin/postmaster does not find the database system.  Expected to find it
in the PGDATA directory "/var/lib/pgsql", but unable to open file with
pathname "/var/lib/pgsql/base/template1/pg_class".
No data directory -- can't proceed.
postmaster []
[root at myhost a directory]#

Now I understand why it failed (the files didn't exist that it was looking
for) but I have no clue as how to fix the problem. I gather that I have to
create a database but I don't know how to do this when the service isn't
running. I'm sort of annoyed that it doesn't work out of the box and the
doco does nothing but explain how to compile your own version and what all
the wonderful features of postgres are.

Can anyone give me some pointers as to what to do ??? I'm sure someone has
got postgres working from the default Red Hat install.

Michael Hunt