Customizing live CD and mass install

[Phyo W. Soe]

Hi all,

I have a server running Edubuntu 6. I also have mini PCs that don't have 
any CD-ROM drives, have 2GB of Flash memory as hard disks (just to 
install the OS, storage will be on the server). They also have Ethernet 
connectors.

What I would like to do is to install Edubuntu on those mini PCs. I want 
to put the contents of Live CD on the server PC and when the miniPCs 
boot up, they will get the required kernel and packages from the 
server's HDD (probably using PXEBoot). That way, the miniPCs won't have 
to download packages from Internet whenever they need to install 
Edubuntu on them.

What I would like to know is how to create a custom Live CD. This is 
necessary since the miniPCs have only 2GB of Flash and all unnecessary 
packages have to be left out. I found a tutorial for that here: 
http://www.atworkonline.it/~bibe/ubuntu/custom-livecd.htm I don't know 
if the same methods can be used for Edubuntu. Do you think there are 
better ways to do that?

Besides customizing the live CD, I want to put drivers (for sound card, 
NIC, etc.,) for the miniPCs on the new Live CD so that during 
installation, the system will find necessary drivers. Do I have to 
recompile the kernel to do this? I would also like to know how to 
configure PXE so that the server will tell the miniPCs to get the 
required kernel and packages from its HDD.

Now for installation. Since there are many miniPCs, I'd like to do mass 
installation. Which will be the suitable tool for this? I saw that FAI 
support Debian. Can I use FAI to mass install Edubuntu?

Any advice/help would be truly appreciated.

Thanks.

P