A Curious Animal

You have installed the PostgreSQL and PostGIS pacakges that Ubuntu easely provides but... you are unable to create your GIS database. Maybe you need the next:

# log in to the database template1:

psql template1

# issue command to create new database:

create database template_postgis with template = template1;

# update pg_database table to indicate that new database is a template

UPDATE pg_database SET datistemplate = TRUE where datname = 'template_postgis';

# connect to new database

\c template_postgis

# add PostGIS extensions and grant access to everyone to spatial tables.

CREATE LANGUAGE plpgsql ;

\i /usr/share/postgresql-8.3-postgis/lwpostgis.sql;

\i /usr/share/postgresql-8.3-postgis/spatial_ref_sys.sql;

GRANT ALL ON geometry_columns TO PUBLIC;

GRANT ALL ON spatial_ref_sys TO PUBLIC;

# prevent further changes to this database

VACUUM FREEZE;

Via: http://blog.ralreegorganon.com