I am in a situation that is quite similar to yours; I have remastered a CD or two but am still wrapping my mind around the details - with much help from the kind people here :)

I started at
http://wiki.grml.org/doku.php?id=remastering&DokuWiki=1a0aedcc21c63c9cfeb645b3d07145e4
This page contains all the instructions you need to create your own version of grml and should give you a good foundation for what you'll need to learn.

HTH,
 --j

On 2/13/07, Doug Smith <bdsmith@oralux.org> wrote:

I knownow this is a real strange one.  I am, however, feeling more and
more comfortable on this list, and I thought it might be possible to
understand something that I have wondered about for a couple of
years.

What I want to know is how do you actually make a live cd?  What I
mean is this, and I will explain what I mean in more detail.
[...]