Extraordinarily slow!!

I'm running postgresql 8.03 under Gentoo Linux and find that all actions
take at least a MINUTE (even dropdb and createdb). During this time, the
posgres account is locked up to the extent that one cannot even su to
it. (The su suceeds when the db operation completes.)

I assume something is misconfigured and Postgres is waiting for
something with each action I perform and then timing out. Unfortunately,
the system is unusable in this form...

It's also interesting that the actions eventually complete properly ---
they just take an incredibly long time. I ran the same version of
postgres under FreeBSD and it was lightning fast.

No error messages appear in any of the logs --- just the normal messages
one expects.

Any suggestions?