Probably I miss something 
I tried latest snapshot and notice some changes in configure.
Everything went smoothly on my Linux 2.2.14, glic 2.1.2 system.
One problem: I tried initdb -e koi8 and it doesn't works - 
all databases I have are in SQL_ASCII encodingDatabase  |  Owner   | Encoding  
-----------+----------+-----------discovery | postgres | SQL_ASCIItemplate1 | postgres | SQL_ASCIItest      | postgres
|SQL_ASCII
 
createdb -E koi8 works as expected:
createdb -E koi8 aa
CREATE DATABASE
zen:~$ psql -l       List of databasesDatabase  |  Owner   | Encoding  
-----------+----------+-----------aa        | postgres | KOI8discovery | postgres | SQL_ASCIItemplate1 | postgres |
SQL_ASCIItest     | postgres | SQL_ASCII
 
I found -e for initdb , -E for createdb options for specifying encoding a 
little bit confused - why not just use one of them !
Is't possible to change encoding of database except dump/destroydb/createdb
cycle ? Is't worth to have pg_encoding to do this ?
Regards,
Oleg
_____________________________________________________________
Oleg Bartunov, sci.researcher, hostmaster of AstroNet,
Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow University (Russia)
Internet: oleg@sai.msu.su, http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/
phone: +007(095)939-16-83, +007(095)939-23-83