See:  http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2004-May/msg00809.html

Basically:

* boot into rescue mode from the CD.  (I used a USB stick to boot off of)
* use fdisk to create partion on the CF disk (/dev/hda)
* add ext3 file system (ext2 may be better) with mkfs.ext2
* mount /dev/hda1 as /mnt/sysimage
* Mount the directory of rpms over NFS, and cd to that directory
* Set up the rpm database at /mnt/sysimage/var/lib/rpm:
   rpm --initdb --root /mnt/sysimage

* You can start manually dealing with dependencies by running:
   rpm -ivh --root /mnt/sysimage kernel-xxxxx.rpm
  This is time consuming and frustrating.  So, please see below for
  the list that I made and suffer less!


# RPMS that were installed.  (Order is important!)

setup
filesystem
tzdata
glibc-common
basesystem
libgcc
glibc
zlib
mktmp
termcap
libtermcap
bash
ncurses
info
tar
ethtool
libselinux
shadow-utils
chkconfig
net-tools
binutils
sed
findutils
pcre
grep
words
cracklib
cracklib-dicts
libstdc++

#  This screwed up the linker somehow???
db4

# rebooted..back at it again
popt
beecrypt
bzip2-libs
elfutils-libelf
elfutils
libattr
libacl

# circular depend with pam...force install it here.
--nodep coreutils
glib
gawk

--nodeps pam

util-linux
dev
iproute
fedora-release
iputils
mingetty
sysklogd
psmisc
procps
modutils
which
e2fsprogs-1*
SysVinit
initscripts

rpm
less
gzip
readline
device-mapper
lvm2
mkinitrd

kernel
diffutils
grub

--nodeps perl-Filter
perl
yum

vim-common
vim-enhanced
vim-minimal
portmap
gmp
krb5-libs
openssl
openssh
tcp_wrappers
openssh-server
openssh-clients
python
gpm

slang
newt
netconfig
hwdata
kudzu
ntsysv
telnet
xinetd
telnet-server
libpcap
net-snmp
glib2
ethereal
dhcp

# get yum working
rpm-python
libxml2
libxml2-python

# expect is a good tool for scripting
yum install expect

yum install dhclient
yum install passwd
yum install bzip2

# LANforge specific commands
adduser lanforge
# copy lanforge's .bashrc and .bash_profile to /root to get pretty root prompt
# create /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/S98lanforge that does:  mkdir /tmp/lanforge
# to be used by LANforge logging files (/tmp should be a ramdisk)


# Edit/create /etc/grub.conf.  Had to use explicit (hd0,0)
# 'paths', and don't try to do the splash image or the VGA
# console is corrupted.


# create /etc/fstab, with /proc, /sys /dev/pts and /dev/shm, etc.

# Mount all of the virtual file systems


#  In the chroot:
/sbin/grub
root (hd0,0)
setup(hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz-2....

# later, was able to run the grub-install /dev/hda command
# from the chroot.  It didn't work the first time I tried...but after
# another reboot it did.  Something about needing / to show up in
# the 'mount' listing I think.

# keep the linux-rescue boot from crashing when trying to open file...
echo "nameserver 192.168.1.5" > /etc/resolv.conf

add localhost to /etc/host file

edit /etc/sysconfig/network to set hostname