Hi, This is to ensure $HOME is a writable directory during makechrootpkg runs. I suspect this is helpful to build various packages - in the example I have in mind (uim in [extra]), the home directory was determined by getpwuid(getuid())->pw_dir, so simply exporting a new HOME environment variable in the PKGBUILD wasn't enough. Best, --Gaetan diff -aur devtools-0.9.9/mkarchroot devtools-0.9.9.new/mkarchroot --- devtools-0.9.9/mkarchroot 2010-08-20 12:44:16.000000000 +0200 +++ devtools-0.9.9.new/mkarchroot 2010-08-23 11:11:45.036666760 +0200 @@ -194,5 +194,9 @@ if [ ! -e "${working_dir}/.arch-chroot" ]; then date +%s > "${working_dir}/.arch-chroot" fi + + # give nobody a writable home (for makechrootpkg) + chroot "${working_dir}" usermod -d /build nobody + # }}} fi