These are notes I made while creating a new xvm hypervisor on Precise:

• create schroot with 'sbuild-createchroot /srv/chroot/precise-amd64-sbuild ​http://mirrors.mit.edu/ubuntu'
• defang init inside the schroot:

  dpkg-divert --local /sbin/initctl
  mv /sbin/initctl /sbin/initctl.distrib
  ln -s /bin/true /sbin/initctl
  

• created /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d inside the chroot, containing:

  #!/bin/sh
  
  exit 101
  

• I had to apply the patch from ​http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=471747 to the version of sbuild in Hardy to make the invirtibuilder work for precise

• Right now, to build from a tag instead of a branch name with the invirtibuilder, you need to specify the commit that the tag points to, with the syntax

  (tagname)^{} 
  

  I'll fix this.

• `create-sbuildchroot' didn't install any locales, so I had to:

  apt-get install --no-install-recommends language-pack-en
  

  (--no-install-recommends because otherwise it pulls in bits of Firefox)