~/etc/

wow! This could be the missing link to the whole puzzle? Anyone have any practical experience with it? Maybe the security issues could be resolved by allowing configuration as to how many overlays allowed? Maybe even hardcoded at one? I have a minimal understanding of this patch but it seems very interesting.

Bernhard Wiedemann, the author of the translucency filesystem, wrote:
"and for anyone happening to read this - want to have a look at the compactest way of making your own customized bootcd?http://lsmod.de/bootcd/Makefile (beta quality only yet)"

He posted to the Knoppix developer mailing list: http://mailman.linuxtag.org/pipermai...ry/001879.html
"When all is set up correctly (see make init)
its about just calling "make iso" or "make rw" to master or
burn a complete remastered CD-RW... you may have a
preconfigured, adapted, autohardwareconfiguring standard Debian system
within the "linuxroot" dir (it should also work with any other
distribution). The idea with translucency is that on bootup the ram-disk(tmpfs on /tmp) is initially empty (consuming no memory) but that you can change any file as usual on the system"

So, as it seems to me, the "make"-script burns a knoppixlike CD which has the function we want! :-) Too bad I have no Linux machine with a burner :-(