Appendix D. Random Bits D.4.4.2. Install additional packages D.4.4.3. Create device files D.4.4.4. Mount Partitions Now it’s required to install some additionally required packages, like makedev (needed for the next section): apt install makedev At this point /dev/ only contains very basic device files. For the next steps of the installation addi- tional device files may be needed. There are different ways to go about this and which method you should use depends on the host system you are using for the installation, on whether you intend to use a modular kernel or not, and on whether you intend to use dynamic (e.g. using udev ) or static device files for the new system. A few of the available options are: Note that the postinst scripts of some packages may try to create device files, so this option should only be used with care. mount --bind dev /dev You need to create /etc/fstab . Here is a sample you can modify to suit: # editor /etc/fstab 114 • create a default set of static device files using (after chrooting) # mount none /proc -t proc # cd /dev # MAKEDEV generic or depending on your specific architecture: # MAKEDEV std # cd .. • manually create only specific device files using MAKEDEV • bind mount /dev from your host system on top of /dev in the target system, like: # file system mount point type options dump pass /dev/XXX / ext3 defaults 0 1 /dev/XXX /boot ext3 ro,nosuid,nodev 0 2 /dev/XXX none swap sw 0 0 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 sys /sys sysfs defaults 0 0 /dev/fd0 /media/floppy auto noauto,rw,sync,user,exec 0 0 # /etc/fstab: static file system information. #