twoboxen:

If, from the terminal, you run "debbie" to get a chroot prompt or if you run an app like "debbie appname," you'll run it as "user". If you run "sudo debian" to get a chroot prompt or "sudo debian appname", you'll run it as root.

If you want to set passwords for the chroot accounts, go in as root and set them yourself. The passwords aren't tied to the Maemo accounts' passwords in any way.