>I don't know, but I'm guessing that it detected an earlier installation somehow and >therefore did not try to write those files. Did you use synaptic and try "Mark for Complete >Removal"? Did you remove all of the postgresql packages? I'm just guessing that if you >remove all of all of it, then reinstall all of it, you'll get back what you are missing. Yes, I was using synaptic. It showed there were no instances of postgresql left. I finaly found an answer after more searching. This will give you a clean slate: apt-get --purge remove postgresql-8.3 postgresql-client-8.3 postgresql-client-common postgresql-common mv /var/lib/postgresql /var/lib/postgresql-backup mv /etc/postgresql /etc/postgresql-backup mv /var/log/postgresql /var/log/postgresql-backup apt-get install postgresql-8.3 etc.. I'm back to where I started, with my problem being the new app, and a working instance of postgresql.