I am looking for advice on how to run a wheezy chroot from a lenny host, in particular how to handle dev, udev, and X.
BACKGROUND My system is running lenny and I wanted to use python 2.7. I upgraded debootstrap from backports and then created a wheezy (actually, "testing") chroot with --variant=minbase. After some rough spots (I needed to bind mount sys and proc, and eventually /dev/pts, and install a package so debconf could ask questions during the install) thing seem to be running. Now I want to try mythtv in the chroot, which requires X, which I believe requires /dev to be hooked up properly. The Debian Reference for lenny provides some instructions about setting up using a different virtual terminal (the current version does not: http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch09.en.html#_chroot_system. The lenny reference suggests running MAKEDEV. Most other sources suggest mount -bind is the way to go, but some people caution this can lead to trouble (and there were some Debian bugs (http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=623060_ in this scenario). SPECIFICS Some advice is to install udev in the chroot, and I believe installing myth would force in udev. Some specific concerns: 1. udev does a lot at system startup. Since the chroot never boots, that code, which may even include scripts that launch daemons, will never execute. 2. I'm concerned that sharing /dev's will cause the chroot to affect the host OS. Apart from bug 623060 (which I hope applies to a version I'll never see), I'm concerned about 2 X servers competing (even if assigned different VT's), and concerned that logs from the chroot will end up going to the host, probably via /dev/pts (since there were messages in the chroot that it couldn't log because there was no /dev/pts). To repeat: currently I share /dev/pts, but not /dev. 3. The testing udev may require kernel features not available in the kernel the host is running, 2.6.26-2-686 #1 SMP. 4. Would it be possible for the chroot to use the host as the X server? The net also shows suggestions to use schroot, which I may explore. However, I would like to understand what is going on under the hood. Further, the easiest thing is to use the lenny schroot (or a backport if available), and that might not handle wheezy well. It's possible that a wheezy chroot inside a lenny host is just not advisable. Please say so (and why) if you think so. FYI I have a single core P4 without hardware virtualization. This is one reason I'm trying a chroot and not a VM. I also thought a chroot would be simpler :) I am not especially concerned about chroot security, except in the sense that I don't want to inadvertently mess up the host from inside the chroot. Thanks for any advice. Happy Holidays to all--or least all for whom these are holidays! Ross Boylan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1324970129.18934.57.ca...@corn.betterworld.us
