That sounds so ingenious i'm kicking myself for not thinking of it already!

While idea 2 sounds the best, i've never had much luck with compiling kernels under any of the 'buntu's. So will probably try the r/o idea first.

Do you know anything about how/why the run and lock directories are mounted as they are in ubuntu? My gentoo machines don't use this and a quick google didn't turn anything up.