current install disks modification

[Marcos Dione <mdione@grulic.org.ar>]

    hi ppl. I plan to modify current install disks to match more
precisely the instalation environment that I'll face in the next weeks,
and I'll need some pointer, specially to documentation. I'll tell you
what is the plan.

    I'll be facing a migration to linux in a pool of ~500 machines in
the next 2/3 months. These will be just devel stations, so the desition
to use unstable was made. this means that now the only way to do it is
to install the bas woody, dist-upgrade and then continue with th rest of
the instalation. given that that hw is very heterogeneous, and that the
final process may vary thru the time, I intend to use the base disks
(bf-2.4 actually) with simple modifications so it installs unstable
instead of woody.

    what I (think I) know about the instalation process is this: the
root.img has this two dbootstrap (binary) and debbootstrap (shell
script) that drives the whole instalation. dboostrap calls the other
with certain parameters, one of them being 'woody', string that I can
see in the binary, but what I thought I would find it in a conffile.
complaints aside, the ways I have to modify these are:

1) download dbootstrap's source code and modify it (the intended) or

2) modify the script so it ignores the 'woody' part and go straight to
'unstable'.

    also, dbootstrap passes the url where to fetch the packages from,
and debbootstrap fetches the Release and Packages.gz files and install
all the 'Priority: required' packages.

    what I couldn't find was dbootstrap's source code, nor any doc,
scripts, hints, etc about the way to build the floppies. I've heard a
urban legend claiming the existence of some 'boot-floppies' packages ore
something like that, but it seems that it was a long, logn time ago (in
a galaxy far, far away?). I mean, someone has built those floppies, and
given that he might do it several time till they got good, must have
used some scripts or Makefiles or ... ?

    so, can you gimme any pointers? I think I'm very close to the end of
this, and just need a little push. may be I overread something, yes, is
very possible. ah! and a little note: I'm not subscribed to the list, so
please cc'me. TIA.