debchroot

With this highly configurable bash script you can enable your 32-bit/64-bit Raspberry Pi, Orange Pi, Arduino UNO, ASUS Tinker Board S R2.0, etc., as well as Android/Harmony OS-based devices (root access required) with ARM architecture support 32-bit/64-bit x86_64 applications, such as every version of AMPL, GAMS, Stata, TeXmacs, or Wine/CrossOver software, with a single command. The script creates a minimal Debian/Ubuntu-based chroot in /var/chroot_<arch> mirroring your user's home folder and bind-mounting all directories matching '~/*', together with the '~/.config/*' (this allows to run the same app, e.g., Calibre, on different architectures with shared configuration and can be turned off if needed). Technically, you can create multiple chroots, each with a different architecture (so far, one for each architecture), an open filesystem (in contrast to docker), and a shared X11 server, including a /var/chroot_arm64 on an x86_64 machine (or /var/chroot_armhf on an x86 one). The apps in chroot are then run with the help of QEMU (AMPL, GAMS, Stata, TeXmacs, etc.) and box86/box64 (Wine/CrossOver, box86 and box64 need to be compiled by you following an easy manual) binary format configurations. The crossover command allows both binfmt configurations to co-exist, i.e., you can launch your Stata (TeXmacs) and EndNote (or a Steam game) on your device simultaneously with one short command/single click!

This repository provides several pre-configured versions of the script for these five cases: a) AMPL, b) GAMS, a) Stata (which is, by default, configured with evince as the Stata manual viewer in chroot, please install it in host as well), b) TeXmacs, and c) Wine/Crossover. The AMPL, GAMS, and Stata-specific versions of the script search for files matching '*ampl*gz', '*gams*exe', '*stata*gz*', and '*crossover*.deb' (string case irrelevant) in the user's home directory. If you are interested in using the script, put the script file into /usr/local/bin/ or ~/.local/bin, an appropriately-named installer (if required) into ~, and run these commands in your terminal:

chmod 0755 "$(which debchroot)"
sudo debchroot —-help
sudo debchroot —-install
sudo debchroot -—setup

After this, simply run ampl, gams, stata, xstata, stata-se, etc., texmacs, or crossover (CrossOver has to be run "outside the chroot", therefore please use the provided crossover script). Please note that GAMS Studio and AMPL IDE do not work under chroot, neither does, e.g., SDMX.jar in Stata (I found a workaround though).

To avoid typing sudo debchroot --setup every session, you can add this line to your user's or root's crontab, replacing <architecture>, <user>, and <path> with the required values, e.g., amd64, $(whoami) (or your username if run under root) and /usr/local/bin/:

@reboot sleep 60; sudo ARCH=<architecture> CHROOT_USER=<user> <path>/debchroot --setup

For advanced uses, such as to start a shell (bash) session and to run a command, simply type sudo debchroot and sudo debchroot "cmd", for example:

sudo debchroot
sudo debchroot "echo hello world"
sudo debchroot "host 'echo this runs a command under host'"

NB The instructions on how to avoid password on running the host command under chroot are provided in sudo chroot --help.

PS A single line in crontab, changing the priority (niceness) of selected processes, can significantly increase the speed of QEMU-run chroots, please follow the instructions in sudo chroot --help to set it up. However, TeXmacs performs the worst in all cases.

PS The debchroot script is divided into sections, please add all your custom code into the ones labeled # <!-- concrete apps -…-> and # <!-- /concrete apps -…->.

Requirements:

• zsh
• p7zip-full
• debootstrap
• qemu-user-static
• box86 (optional) compile instructions
• box64 (optional) compile instructions

sudo apt-get install zsh p7zip-full qemu-user-static

The script is primarily designed to be run on Debian/Ubuntu systems, but you can also run debootstrap via docker (or by any other means).

help for debchroot:

type /usr/local/bin/debchroot --info    to display the chroot parameters
type /usr/local/bin/debchroot --install to install the chroot environment
type /usr/local/bin/debchroot --setup   to set up the chroot environment
type /usr/local/bin/debchroot --setup+  same + add symlinks in /usr/lib/
type /usr/local/bin/debchroot --umount  to unmount the chroot environment
type /usr/local/bin/debchroot --umount+ same + remove the added symlinks
type /usr/local/bin/debchroot --backup  to backup unsynced folders/files
type /usr/local/bin/debchroot --restore to restore the chroot environment
type /usr/local/bin/debchroot <cmd>     to run <cmd> under chroot

NB type DISPLAY=:1 CHROOT_USER=root ARCH=i386 SUITE=jessie APTSOURCE=http://archive.debian.org/debian/ /usr/local/bin/debchroot <flag|cmd> to change default parameters

NB type host <nohup> <cmd> under [chroot] to run a command in [host]
   to avoid password, please add these lines to /etc/ssh/sshd_config

AuthorizedKeysCommand /bin/sh -c "cat %h/.ssh/authorized_keys.d/*"
AuthorizedKeysCommandUser root

PS to speed up chroot, you may want to add this line to your crontab

* * * * *  renice -n -20 $(ps aux | grep qemu-binfmt | grep -v grep | awk ‘{print $2}’) &> /dev/null

If something doesn't work, please post the error into issues.

Buy me a coffee via a donation if you like the script!
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