getting the kernel initrd image to build

[Nick Gawronski]

Hi, I was wondering with debian etch testing I am using the 2.6.17 kernels
built at people.debian.org/~shane and was wondering where I can look to
find what commands were issued after installation to build the initrd
image so I could rebuild my kernel and reinstall it with later kernel
version and then rebuild the initrd image.  I would really like to not
need an initrd image so the kernel will just boot the system.  I
understand initrd does save things from needing to be built into the
kernel so would like to find out how the initrd was built so I could
either build one myself or just rebuild the kernel  with those features
compiled in.