Custom CD for Dell Servers

[debbi@starshine.org]

 I'd like to build a custom Debian install CD with two
 features.  

 First I want install this on a series of (20 or so) 
 Dell cabinet mount servers.  These systems come with
 Red Hat 7.0 pre-installed.  That distribution seems to
 have a patched kernel to support the hardware RAID 
 (PERC?) and some of the Dell custom SNMP MIB 
 instrumentation.

 I know how to grab the RPM source package, unpack it,
 and build that to the appropriate kernel version. I 
 just want to know:

 	How do I build a Debian install CD with a custom
	kernel?

	Do I need an initrd (initial RAM disk)?  What are
	the required contents?  What are the space 
	constraints?

 I also want to automate the installation (a la 
 kickstart).

 I've heard of FAI (fully automated installer) and
 I read that Progeny was working on some sort of 
 autoinstaller.

    How do these work?  (A brief blow-by-blow and
	a sample config file would be best).

	How well do these work?  Any limitations or bugs
	I should know about?

 (Ideally it should be able to automate installation of
 Debian base, perform an online "registration" and 
 wget-type fetch of the machine's IP address and other 
 configuration data, and then provide a series of 
 apt-get remove, update-alternatives, and apt-get 
 install operations.  It would even better if I could
 fetch/pre-configure my applications).