creating vmlinuz and initrd for distribution media

I am trying to learn to create the vmlinuz and initrd that are shipped
on installation DVD of Fedora like FC6,FC3 Suse etc etc or any other
linux distribution. Which when loaded by isolinux and after asking for
options starts installation on a system
1) What should I look into any specific documentation
2) how does it work without system.map file
3) how are these kernel and initrd different from the ones found in /
boot
folder of a system in which linux is installed that are specific to a
particular system and load only the specific drivers