Latest update: I successfully was able to test and boot a full Debian 6 inside of "image-full-clanton.ext3".
@Thomas_Faust was on to something with debootstrap article he had posted earlier.
After going back threw my notes and reading this article IntelGalileo/Debian - ROS Wiki Today I stumbled across this easy solution that runs Debian virtually but in theory should boot other linux flavors with out altering or the Intel clanton image provided.
Thomas and my goal was to achieve getting good old "apt-get install PACKAGENAME" working again.
Step 1. Throw out all of the other long instructions we provided and just build a simple Debian VM.
Step 2. Inside of a VM use debootstrap Installing new Debian systems with debootstrap
Step 3. Export debootstrap virtual drive as an image using #dd if=/dev/sdb of=/part1.ext3 bs=3983360 conv=sync,noerror
Step 4. Copy part1.ext3 onto the SD card.
Step 5. After clanton boots up as normal # cd /media/realroot
Step 6. Create a new mount directory on SD card #mkdir /media/realroot/part1
Step 7. Mount new disk #mount -t ext3 /media/realroot/part1.ext3 /media/realroot/part1
Step 8. Boot Debian chroot /media/realroot/part1
Debian is now working in my sample when I run the following command "apt-get install apache2" package installs.
Type next command apache starts.
/etc/init.d/apache2 start
9. chroot does not boot automatically on clanton during boot time you will need to create a script like http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2100586
10. Was thinking of allowing chroot ftp access to clanton so I could changing sketch's directory "Allowing FTP Access to Files Outside the Home Directory Chroot" Allowing FTP access to files outside the home directory chroot - MDLog:/sysadmin
11. Finally maybe create a python script on clanton that monitors sketch directory for changes and executes new sketch based on new time stamp via Linux command like Re: Start sketch from Linux
This is my sample public Debian 6 image if you don't have time to build your own VM and want to skip steps 1,2 & 3 https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/49803357/IntelGalileo/part1.7z.
If you need to modify or boot the image user accounts logins are root & scott password: tiger.
Note: Until you create a script like in step 9 when you reboot chroot will not auto mount the disk.
Thank you Thomas for pointing out debootstrap!
Also see articles.
chroot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia