Cannot create chroots with cowbuilder because of usr-is-merged

[Markus Blatt <markus@dr-blatt.de>]

Hi,

I cannot create or update chroots (for sid or unstable) with cowbuilder anymore, neither on Debian 12 nor 11.

$ sudo cowbuilder create 
I: Invoking pbuilder
I: forking: pbuilder create --buildplace /var/cache/pbuilder/base.cow --mirror http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ --distribution sid --no-targz --extrapackages cowdancer
W: /root/.pbuilderrc does not exist
I: Running in no-targz mode
I: Distribution is sid.
I: Current time: Mon Oct 30 17:13:56 CET 2023
I: pbuilder-time-stamp: 1698682436
I: Building the build environment
I: running debootstrap
/usr/sbin/debootstrap
I: Target architecture can be executed
I: Retrieving InRelease 
I: Checking Release signature
I: Valid Release signature (key id 4CB50190207B4758A3F73A796ED0E7B82643E131)
I: Retrieving Packages 
 ...

I: Unpacking usr-is-merged...
I: Unpacking zlib1g:amd64...
W: Failure while unpacking required packages.  This will be attempted up to five times.
W: See /var/cache/pbuilder/base.cow/debootstrap/debootstrap.log for details (possibly the package /var/cache/apt/archives/usr-is-merged_38_all.deb is at fault)
(this is tried another 4 times)
...
I: Unpacking zlib1g:amd64...
W: Failure while unpacking required packages.  This will be attempted up to five times.
W: See /var/cache/pbuilder/base.cow/debootstrap/debootstrap.log for details (possibly the package /var/cache/apt/archives/usr-is-merged_38_all.deb is at fault)
E: debootstrap failed
E: Tail of debootstrap.log:
 util-linux pre-depends on libmount1 (>= 2.39.1)
  libmount1:amd64 is unpacked, but has never been configured.

dpkg: warning: ignoring pre-dependency problem!
dpkg: regarding .../util-linux_2.39.2-4_amd64.deb containing util-linux, pre-dependency problem:
 util-linux pre-depends on libpam0g (>= 0.99.7.1)
  libpam0g:amd64 is unpacked, but has never been configured.

dpkg: warning: ignoring pre-dependency problem!
dpkg: regarding .../util-linux_2.39.2-4_amd64.deb containing util-linux, pre-dependency problem:
 util-linux pre-depends on libselinux1 (>= 3.1~)
  libselinux1:amd64 is unpacked, but has never been configured.

dpkg: warning: ignoring pre-dependency problem!
dpkg: regarding .../util-linux_2.39.2-4_amd64.deb containing util-linux, pre-dependency problem:
 util-linux pre-depends on libsmartcols1 (>= 2.38)
  libsmartcols1:amd64 is unpacked, but has never been configured.

dpkg: warning: ignoring pre-dependency problem!
dpkg: regarding .../util-linux_2.39.2-4_amd64.deb containing util-linux, pre-dependency problem:
 util-linux pre-depends on libsystemd0
  libsystemd0:amd64 is unpacked, but has never been configured.

dpkg: warning: ignoring pre-dependency problem!
dpkg: regarding .../util-linux_2.39.2-4_amd64.deb containing util-linux, pre-dependency problem:
 util-linux pre-depends on libtinfo6 (>= 6)
  libtinfo6:amd64 is unpacked, but has never been configured.

dpkg: warning: ignoring pre-dependency problem!
dpkg: regarding .../util-linux_2.39.2-4_amd64.deb containing util-linux, pre-dependency problem:
 util-linux pre-depends on libudev1 (>= 183)
  libudev1:amd64 is unpacked, but has never been configured.

dpkg: warning: ignoring pre-dependency problem!
dpkg: regarding .../util-linux_2.39.2-4_amd64.deb containing util-linux, pre-dependency problem:
 util-linux pre-depends on libuuid1 (>= 2.16)
  libuuid1:amd64 is unpacked, but has never been configured.

dpkg: warning: ignoring pre-dependency problem!
dpkg: regarding .../util-linux_2.39.2-4_amd64.deb containing util-linux, pre-dependency problem:
 util-linux pre-depends on zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4)
  zlib1g:amd64 is unpacked, but has never been configured.

dpkg: warning: ignoring pre-dependency problem!
Preparing to unpack .../util-linux_2.39.2-4_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking util-linux (2.39.2-4) over (2.39.2-4) ...
Preparing to unpack .../zlib1g_1%3a1.2.13.dfsg-3_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking zlib1g:amd64 (1:1.2.13.dfsg-3) over (1:1.2.13.dfsg-3) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/usr-is-merged_38_all.deb
E: End of debootstrap.log
W: Aborting with an error
E: pbuilder create failed
I: forking: rm -rf /var/cache/pbuilder/base.cow

Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?

Thanks a lot for the help.

Best,

Markus