initdb failed with PostgreSQL 7.4

Dear list

I try to init the DB cluster without success. I am working on a RHEL 4
box and I installed postgresql, postgresql-server and postgresql-jdbc.
For the installation I used up2date and everything went fine.
To init the DB cluster I typed:

[root@zupo bin]# su - postgres
-bash-3.00$ initdb -E latin1 --locale=de_CH --lc-collate=C -D
/var/lib/pgsql/data -W

That results in the following output:
<output>
The files belonging to this database system will be owned by user
"postgres".
This user must also own the server process.

The database cluster will be initialized with locales:
  COLLATE:  C
  CTYPE:    de_CH
  MESSAGES: de_CH
  MONETARY: de_CH
  NUMERIC:  de_CH
  TIME:     de_CH

fixing permissions on existing directory /var/lib/pgsql/data... ok
creating directory /var/lib/pgsql/data/base... ok
creating directory /var/lib/pgsql/data/global... ok
creating directory /var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_xlog... ok
creating directory /var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_clog... ok
selecting default max_connections... 100
selecting default shared_buffers... 1000
creating configuration files... ok
creating template1 database in /var/lib/pgsql/data/base/1... ok
initializing pg_shadow... ok
Enter new superuser password:
Enter it again:
setting password...
initdb: The password file wasn't generated. Please report this problem.

initdb: failed
</output>

Does anybody as an idea?
Please point me in the right direction! Thanks!

Kind regards
Martin