The aim this time is to setup a base rootfs for Ubuntu/Debian distro which can be used for setting up a chroot jail or to create a docker container base image. This blog is based on a earlier blog which I have written but forgot to publish around June, 2012. The below mentioned steps are validated on Fedora 25 Workstation installation. For setting up a debian based rootfs we need a tool called debootstrap. It’s available as part of EPEL repository for Fedora and other Redhat based distros. Make sure to always install the latest version of debootstrap. sudo dnf install debootstrap To setup a base rootfs you need to decide on the version of debian distro (wheezy, jessie, buster), the target architecture (i386 or amd64) and what kind of variant you want to setup.