Comment 1 for bug 110144

It turns out that this was just a configuration item that I missed when I read the debootstrap installation guide. In the guide they do, in fact, warn you to edit /etc/network/interfaces and add a line for the loopback device.

OTOH it seems like this file, and a few other files, could be improved for debootstrap. I think it would be preferable to have a /etc/network/interfaces file that had the loopback device autostart by default, with perhaps commented out entries for other devices. Likewise, the /etc/fstab file is blank in the default configuration, whereas it ought to at least have entries for /proc and /sys, and perhaps commented out entries showing how other lines might look. I would be interested in making some of these changes myself and submitting patches to the package maintainers if someone can help me figure out what I need to do to get started.