phppgadmin on Debian/unstable (sort of)

I have close to a virgin install of postgresql and phppgadmin, but
can't get phppgadmin to allow any kind of login and the logs
aren't showing anything useful.  I did give the postgres user a
password as mentioned in a file under /usr/share/doc/phppgadmin,
and put a .pgpass file under /var/lib/postgres for localhost
access on port 5432.  Is there some kind of tutorial or
troubleshooting guide on how to get this working?

Thanks,
Gord