Problem with chrooted Etch

[Thomas H. George]

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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