Postgres installation killing me

I am having an utter bitch of a time getting postgres up and running.
I am using it on a redhat 5.0 system (P166, 64 meg 4 gb HD), using kernel 2.0.32 and
installed it with the following rpms:

postgresql-6.2.1-7
postgresql-data-6.2.1-7
postgresql-devel-6.2.1-7

my data directory is /var/lib/pgsql, and I am able to connect to my "database" template1 with  the command psql template1.

I cannot create a new database with createdb - I get  the following error message:
/bin/createdb: can't find the monitor program!

if I use psql or monitor, these also die (monitor because of an inability to find an old libc.so.4)

initdb doesn't work either, due to
initdb: POSTGRESHOME not set
error

What is the problem? All the progs are on the path.

There is nothing about the POSTGRESHOME variable in the documentation.

Needless to say, this group is nearly my last resort. Could someone please tell me what is going on?

Also if you could post the reply to leon@dingo.nhlbi.nih.gov, I'd be much obliged.

thanks,

Leon

-- 
Leon Harris
Visiting Fellow
Room 221, Bldg 3
3 Centre Drive, Bethesda, MD
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
National Institutes of Health.
phone 301 496 6390