Bug#1007764: gcc-defaults: please support DPKG_ROOT

[Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues <josch@debian.org>]

Source: gcc-defaults
Version: 1.194
Severity: normal
Tags: patch
User: debian-dpkg@lists.debian.org
Usertags: dpkg-root-support
X-Debbugs-Cc: josch@debian.org

Hi,

when creating chroots for new architectures that are in the process of
being bootstrapped without yet having emulation support from qemu, it is
not possible to run maintainer scripts inside the foreign architecture
chroot because foreign architecture ELF binaries cannot be executed. The
solution to that problem is to run maintainer scripts from outside the
chroot and use the DPKG_ROOT environment variable to instruct the
maintainer script on which chroot to operate. By default, for normal
installations, that environment variable is set, but empty.

Apart from init-system-helpers and pam, all packages in the
Essential:yes set have support for DPKG_ROOT already. To start building
packages we also need to install build-essential.

Please consider applying the patch from this merge request:

https://salsa.debian.org/toolchain-team/gcc-defaults/-/merge_requests/4

We tested it in our CI environment and it produces a bit-by-bit
identical chroot with DPKG_ROOT compared to a normal installation.

https://salsa.debian.org/helmutg/dpkg-root-demo/

Since the DPKG_ROOT variable is empty on normal installations, the patch
should have no effect in the normal case.

Thanks!

cheers, josch