a forward from some talk with the FAI guys.. perhaps you can help me here :)
FAI only needs the live-initramfs package which provides the functionsto boot from network, mounts the root file system via NFS and adds aufs (another unionfs) on top of it. Using aufs we have write access to allfiles inside the nfsroot which was mounted read-only. Other feature of live-initramfs (like setup the locale, enable a user account,...) are not needed by FAI. live-initramfs also is usefull for the fai-cd, were it also helps during the boot process. There are no plans to use more features of debian live. I heared that live-initramfs will be split into more packages in the future, so we may need less parts from it.
ok thanks :) in fact this is where my AOE mount fails, the system ends up read only and the aufs part is not working. What should i take care about when i mount the root file system so it fits with the live system ? For now i just pur ROOT=/dev/etherd/xxx in the initramfs.conf and use the initrd to bring the network and AOE tools up (in init-premount). From the prompt of the FAI boot i can do a mount and see that there is a 'rootfs' for / and then my AOE mount also for / so i bet there is only a little thing i need to trwich to get it done no ? regards, Jean.