I need to develop software in C/C++ for an embedded system. I have Debian 6 running off of a USB hard drive. I would like to be able to generate a stripped-down kernel with modules, and install them either on a CF card or a USB 'thumb' drive.

I succeeded in building a Linux 3.6 kernel and running it in Debian off of the USB hard drive, but I am having trouble figuring out how to install it on the thumb drive.

I would like a build cycle that looks like this:

1) Build module or kernel with desired software 2) Install it on thumb drive 3) Boot and test

I would like to use the same system for both development and testing, if that is feasible. I am looking for resources and tutorials that would help me understand how to do this.