permissions prevent server from starting

[eurythmia]

Binary package hint: postgresql-8.3

user@host:~$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 9.04
Release: 9.04
user@host:~$ apt-cache policy postgresql-8.3
postgresql-8.3:
  Installed: 8.3.8-0ubuntu9.04
  Candidate: 8.3.8-0ubuntu9.04
  Version table:
 *** 8.3.8-0ubuntu9.04 0
        500 ftp://ftp.cs.mun.ca jaunty-updates/main Packages
        500 ftp://ftp.cs.mun.ca jaunty-security/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     8.3.7-1 0
        500 ftp://ftp.cs.mun.ca jaunty/main Packages

directory /var/lib/postgresql belongs to root:root
This is an issue because postgresql does not want to be started by root, so the default postgresql user is used in the "sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql8.3 start" command.
I was able to fix this issue on my machine by running:
"sudo chown postgres:postgres /var/lib/postgres -R"
The permissions should be set correctly upon package installation so that the server can be started without any workarounds.