Preventing PostgreSQL from starting on boot in Ubuntu
Ubuntu or Debian can run multiple instances of PostgreSQL and provide a specific way to autostart/stop/start each cluster.

There should be a file named start.conf inside /etc/postgresql/9.2/main (or more generally /etc/postgresql/&lt;version>/&lt;clustername>) with these self-explanatory contents:


# Automatic startup configuration
# auto: automatically start/stop the cluster in the init script
# manual: do not start/stop in init scripts, but allow manual startup with
#         pg_ctlcluster
# disabled: do not allow manual startup with pg_ctlcluster (this can be easily
#           circumvented and is only meant to be a small protection for
#           accidents).

auto


If you replace auto by manual, you could start this PostgreSQL instance only when desired with the command:

sudo pg_ctlcluster 9.2 main start


As for looking at the console, what you should want instead is having this run in a terminal when you work with the database:

tail -f /var/log/postgresql/postgresql-9.2-main.log