OK, I think I have the solution, though I'm creating and testing in a new container, just to be sure. During the initial container setup process, there is some problem with the dictionaries-common package, and I have no idea what it is because it's apparently not present on a live system. Initially, I tried apt-get install -y dictionaries-common but all I got was this:
Adding 'diversion of /usr/share/dict/words to /usr/share/dict/words.pre-dictionaries-common by dictionaries-common'
dpkg: unrecoverable fatal error, aborting:
failed to fstat previous diversions file: No such file or directory
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
P: Begin unmounting filesystems...
P: Saving caches...
E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.
So here's my 5-step (testing-in-progress) fix:
1: dpkg --configure -a as recommended
2: apt-get install --reinstall -y dictionaries-common to fix the problem so dpkg can resume
3: lb clean to clean the chroot
4: lb config to build whatever the container is running. Optionally, add --architecture amd64 or --architecture i386 to build to suit
5: lb build to actually build the image
By the time this post is approved, I will know for sure.
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