Joys of schroot
Schroot is good! Try schroot. You have LVM set up and some free
extents in a vg? Try this:
lvcreate -n schroot-sid -L1G YOUR-VG-NAME
mke2fs -j /dev/YOUR-VG-NAME/schroot-sid
mount /dev/YOUR-VG-NAME/schroot-sid /mnt
debootstrap --keyring=/etc/apt/trusted.gpg sid /mnt http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian
umount /mnt
Then
apt-get install schroot and put this in your
/etc/schroot/schroot.conf:
[sid]
type=lvm-snapshot
device=/dev/YOUR-VG-NAME/schroot-sid
description=Debian sid
priority=5
users=YOUR-USER-NAME
root-users=YOUR-USER-NAME
source-root-users=root
aliases=unstable
lvm-snapshot-options=--size 2G
Now,
schroot -c sid will make a LVM snapshot of
/dev/YOUR-VG-NAME/schroot-sid, mount it, set it up as
a nice working system, and chroot into it running a shell. Have a
look around: resolv.conf is set up, your home directory is bind
mounted, /proc and /sys are mounted.
When you exit the chroot, the LVM snapshot disappears, and
/dev/YOUR-VG-NAME/schroot-sid is unchanged.
If you want to modify
/dev/YOUR-VG-NAME/schroot-sid, you just
schroot
-c sid-source.
In my laptop, I did this:
# schroot -c sid-source
(sid)# echo APT::Install-Recommends "false";' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50enrico
(sid)# apt-get install build-essential, pbuilder, devscripts, fakeroot
(sid)# apt-get clean
At this point, to build a debian package like if I were using
pbuilder, I do this:
pkgdir$ schroot -c sid
(sid)pkgdir$ su -c /usr/lib/pbuilder/pbuilder-satisfydepends
(sid)pkgdir$ debuild -us -uc
You can repeat this whole process with lenny and etch, for
example, and if you are on an amd64 system, you can also do sid32,
lenny32 and etch32.
If you don't want to redownload packages all the time, install
approx and
configure the
-source chroots to use it. This also
allows you to easily switch all systems from one mirror to another
if, for example, you are traveling abroad.
If you want to do the same as
pbuilder update, you
can do this:
# schroot -c sid-source
(sid)# apt-get update
(sid)# apt-get dist-upgrade
(sid)# apt-get autoremove
(sid)# apt-get clean
You can use
schroot -c sid-source for all sorts of
permanent maintenance works.
You can also create persistent named snapshots:
$ schroot -b -c sid -n playground
This will only disappear when you do:
$ schroot -c playground -e
And you can enter the schroot as many time as you want with:
$ schroot -r -c playground
You can also enter a temporary snapshot as many times as you
want, by using the random name that schroot generated for it (you
can see it, for example, when running
df or
mount).
You fear that lvm snapshots are a little fragile and a little
slow at the moment? It's not a problem: your home is bind-mounted
inside the chroot, so you can do all the work in your normal home
filesystem, without stressing the snapshot.
This is good not only to build packages. For example, now that
svk is broken in sid
and lenny, I just did
schroot -b -c etch -n svk,
installed svk on it, and then every time I need svk, I can do
schroot -r -c svk and have it ready.
So I've been inexcusably tardy in announcing this, but Obey Arthur Liu
is working on aptitude for Google's Summer of Code program. His
goal is to write a third interface to the program, using GTK+ to
produce the UI; as the abstract for his project states:
Another year has past and 
I'm hacking on a small tool at the moment and need an icon for the launcher.
A simple icon of a cow's head would be perfect: anyone know of something like
this, or willing to quickly draw one for me?
Instead of trying to set a world record in the most stupid world record ever category, finally bringing software development to the same level as 
I've posted yesterday an overview of 
This will be my first DebConf ever and I'm excited. I just booked my
flights together with 
(hint: D-I=Debian Installer, the installation system for your favourite distro)
Commenting on 
Okay, I will again miss DebConf. This time it is not because of time, but
because of money. The flight to Buenos Aires is far too expensive to go there
just for DebConf and I didn't manage to plan some more travelling around South
America...
Hopefully it will get better next year, at least DebConf will be much closer
:-).
PS: Just after deadline for confirmation and my decision for not going there,
I got an email that my sponsorship for travel was approved. Unfortunately too
late to change my decision.
pommed v1.20 is out, with two minor fixes:
