I am using Ubuntu Karmic desktop. I want to install Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server in a chroot environment. Can anyone provide instructions on how to do this?. A Google search does not bring up anything useful (perhaps I am searching using the wrong keywords)
I'm not sure what you mean: you want to install a whole ubuntu distro inside a chroot jail?
Sounds more like you want to do a virtualized server instance on an existing server...
Well ypu have two choices : -install a Virtual machine on your computer (VirtualBox allows you to do that), you create a VM for your ubuntu and rulez :) http://www.virtualbox.org/ Thus means you have a closed environment into which you could work freely.
-install a bare-metal hypervisor (Proxmox, VMWare ESXI) a on a server and create as many VM's as you want.
But it looks like you are more looking for the first solution