Problem with chrooted Etch
When I open a terminal from an X-Window it does not accept entries and
after a minute displays a message, "There was an error creating a child
process for this terminal." In some cases there was a message like
failed to create child process x-terminal-emulator. There is in fact a
soft link from x-terminal-emulator in /usr/bin to
/etc/alternatives/x-terminal-emulator which is in turn a soft link to
/usr/bin/gnome-terminal.wrapper. PATH includes bin and sbin in /, /usr
and /usr/local.
I installed this chrooted version of Etch as described in Debian
Reference - Debian tips, sections 8.6.35.1-4. From the console
(Ctl-Alt-F8) I can enter commands and edit files with no problems. From
X-Window (CTL-ATL-F9) I can launch programs - example: Gimp2.2 - and
access the internet - Gnome Web Browser 2.14.3 - but I can't do any
system administration or open a working terminal window.
A word of further explanation. Initially I installed both gdm and gnome
as described in the Debian-tips. The messages regarding
x-terminal-emulator occurred when Gnome was installed. I subsequently
used dpkg to purge Gnome and installed icewm in hopes of resolving the
problem but this did not help. I had thought that if only I could open
a terminal window I could run gdmsetup - it could not be run from Gnome.
This did not work, again with a message to the effect could not launch
child process - no such program. In fact, gdmsetup is in /usr/sbin.
When I say I cannot open a working terminal window I mean I cannot open
a working terminal window from Gnome or from Failsafe Gnome or from
Failsafe Terminal or from icewm.
I have checked /var/log/Xorg.0.log and /var/log/gdm/:0.log but these
contain mainly entries about the problem with wacom but this is a
different problem. (I like to use a Wacom tablet with its mouse. In my
primary installation (Lenny) it works perfectly and /dev/input contains
a softlink from wacom to event4. I copied my version of xorg.conf to
the the chrooted Etch but there is only event0 to event3 in /dev/input
and MAKEDEV does not know how to create event4. As a result the wacom
pen works perfectly but the mouse does not/)
Perhaps there is an ownership or permission issue that is the root of
the terminal problem? If so, I haven't been able to pin it down.
Tom
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