Yes, then, the database isn't running, but you don't have your environment set up correctly in the account you're running AOLserver from.
Log into *that* account, and try psql, and it will fail, I'm sure.
You need to set some environment variables before it will work. You can do something like printenv from the textmeagain linux account and look for the PG* environment variables to get some idea as to what needs to be set (export PG*=value) in the aolserver environment for the PG connection to work.
Good luck! It sounds like you're close.