Thank you for the debugging output. So you had a broken cluster configuration directory in /etc/postgresql/8.1/main (probably from an earlier installation attempt). Newer postgresql-common versions fix this, thus I'm closing the bug.
Nice that it works for you now! Thanks ** Changed in: postgresql-8.1 (Ubuntu) Sourcepackagename: postgresql-8.1 => postgresql-common Status: Needs Info => Fix Released -- postgresql won't re-install or be removed https://launchpad.net/bugs/55830 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs