How to configure postgresql for the first time?

Question

I have just installed postgresql and I specified password x during installation. When I try to do createdb and specify any password I get the message:

Answer 1

Under Linux PostgresQL is usually configured to allow the root user to login as the postgres superuser postgres from the shell (console or ssh).

$ psql -U postgres

Then you would just create a new database as usual:

CREATE ROLE myuser LOGIN password 'secret';
CREATE DATABASE mydatabase ENCODING 'UTF8' OWNER myuser;

This should work without touching pg_hba.conf. If you want to be able to do this using some GUI tool over the network - then you would need to mess with pg_hba.conf.