simple md5 authentication problems

Hi all, hope this is the right list.

I have postgres 8.1 running on linux. We have tests that mostly run on
windows. I want to run these tests on linux.

On these windows boxes, pg_hba.conf has just one line:

host    all         all         127.0.0.1/32          md5

They use 'postgres' as the user and password to connect to a db.

I couldn't start postgres on linux with just that line, so on linux I
have:

# "local" is for Unix domain socket connections only
local   all         all                               ident sameuser
# IPv4 local connections:
host    all         all         127.0.0.1/32          md5
# IPv6 local connections:
host    all         all         ::1/128               ident sameuser

I created my db as:
postgres=# CREATE DATABASE maragato_test OWNER postgres;

I seem to have a user 'postgres' - I'm using the default.

postgres=# SELECT * FROM "pg_user";
 usename  | usesysid | usecreatedb | usesuper | usecatupd |  passwd  |
valuntil | useconfig
----------+----------+-------------+----------+-----------+----------+----------+-----------
 postgres |       10 | t           | t        | t         | ******** |
        |

However, I get this error:

/home/postgres> psql -h localhost maragato_test postgres
Password for user postgres:
psql: FATAL:  autenticação do tipo password falhou para usuário
"postgres"

Sorry - couldn't get local en_US working. That translates to:
Authentication of type password failed for user postgres. I think that
means 'ident password' . I tried to connect with java and I get the
same error.

I just need to connect to db 'maragato_test' on local host using
'postgres´ as the user and password, using md5.

Any ideas?
Robert