Problems starting postmaster with maxconnections changed

I'm running PostgreSQL 7.1 (not 7.1.2) as installed from the RPM on a Red
Hat 6.2 machine.  It automatically installs a startup script into
/etc/rc.d/init.d.  By default, the server does not listen to tcp/ip
connections.  Since I'll be using JDBC, I need it to do this.  I also need
more than 32 connections.

So I've tried adding some configuration directives to
/var/lib/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf, including the following:

tcpip_socket = true
max_connections = 128
log_connections = on

Then, I stop and start the server with these commands:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/postgresql stop
/etc/rc.d/init.d/postgresql start

It has a problem restarting if I have max_connections set at 128 or 64.  If
I comment it out or set it to 32, it starts fine.

For instance, when I set max_connections to 128 and issue the "restart"
command, I get this output:

[root@s2 data]# /etc/rc.d/init.d/postgresql restart
Stopping postgresql service: postmaster successfully shut down

Checking postgresql installation:                          [  OK  ]
/etc/rc.d/init.d/postgresql: [: 2914: unary operator expected
Starting postgresql service:                               [FAILED]

But it works fine set at 32!

What is wrong?  Do I need to tweak other settings to get more than 32
connections available?

Thanks,
Tauren