postgres install fails uninitialized value PgCommon.pm

[David Sowerby]

Binary package hint: postgresql

The extract below shows failure of pg 8.2, the same happens with 8.1

* Use of uninitialized value in open at /usr/share/postgresql-common/PgCommon.pm line 710.
pg_controldata: could not open file "/global/pg_control" for reading: No such file or directory

Tried hardcoding the path in PgCommon.pm as a workaround but this caused a further error which I couldn't resolve
" * Error: Invalid symbolic link /etc/postgresql/8.2/main/pgdata"

dave@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get install postgresql-8.2 postgresql-client-8.2
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libmpich1.0c2 libmtp6 guile-1.8 lilypond-data texlive-base texlive
  texlive-fonts-recommended libgtk-canvas1 libhtml-template-perl
  libdbd-pg-perl texlive-common libart2 gdk-imlib1 libgpod2 gcc-3.4-base
  libavformat0d texlive-base-bin guile-1.8-libs tetex-bin libgtkmm1.2-0c2a
  freepats texlive-latex-recommended imlib-base texlive-latex-base libsidplay1
  gdk-imlib11 libsigc++0c2 libpq4 libg2c0 libquicktime0 ladcca2
  texlive-doc-base tex-common libmpeg2-4 texinfo
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
Suggested packages:
  oidentd ident-server postgresql-doc-8.2
The following NEW packages will be installed
  postgresql-8.2 postgresql-client-8.2
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/4072kB of archives.
After unpacking 16.4MB of additional disk space will be used.
Selecting previously deselected package postgresql-client-8.2.
(Reading database ... 160205 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking postgresql-client-8.2 (from .../postgresql-client-8.2_8.2.5-1.1_i386.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package postgresql-8.2.
Unpacking postgresql-8.2 (from .../postgresql-8.2_8.2.5-1.1_i386.deb) ...
Setting up postgresql-client-8.2 (8.2.5-1.1) ...

Setting up postgresql-8.2 (8.2.5-1.1) ...
Creating new cluster (configuration: /etc/postgresql/8.2/main, data: /var/lib/postgresql/8.2/main)...
Moving configuration file /var/lib/postgresql/8.2/main/postgresql.conf to /etc/postgresql/8.2/main...
Moving configuration file /var/lib/postgresql/8.2/main/pg_hba.conf to /etc/postgresql/8.2/main...
Moving configuration file /var/lib/postgresql/8.2/main/pg_ident.conf to /etc/postgresql/8.2/main...
Configuring postgresql.conf to use port 5432...
 * Starting PostgreSQL 8.2 database server * Use of uninitialized value in open at /usr/share/postgresql-common/PgCommon.pm line 710.
pg_controldata: could not open file "/global/pg_control" for reading: No such file or directory
Error: Could not parse locale out of pg_controldata output
                                                                         [fail]
invoke-rc.d: initscript postgresql-8.2, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing postgresql-8.2 (--configure):
 subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 postgresql-8.2
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1

[David Sowerby (david-sowerby)]

This proved to be a local permissions error