The preferred way to set up a PostgreSQL server should be the installation of the version provided by your OS distribution; however, version 8.3 or later is required.

Install the PostgreSQL server, client and JDBC support with the tools of the operating system.

Initialize the database directory (usually /var/lib/pgsql/data/), start the database server, and make sure that it is started at system start-up. This may be done with

[root] # /etc/init.d/postgresql start
[root] # chkconfig postgresql on

If the start-up script does not perform the initialization automatically, it might have to be done with

[root] # initdb -D /var/lib/pgsql/data/

and the server is started manually with

[root] # postmaster -i -D /var/lib/pgsql/data/ >logfile 2>&1 &