If you want to generate a custom Debian live CD, including only the tools you want (and maybe additional tools you don't find in other live CDs) there's a really simple solution: live-helper.

Creating a basic bootable Debian live CD ISO image in the current directory is as simple as:

$ lh_config
$ lh_build

That's it. The result will be a file called binary.iso, which you can either burn on a CD-ROM via

$ wodim binary.iso

or test in QEMU using a command line like this:

Quante volte vi sara’ capitato di dover sostituire un disco sul vostro server Linux? A me e’ successo qualche giorno fa quando un disco mezzo rotto e’ stato sostituito da uno nuovo di zecca, ma essendo il pc un server di posta/web primario per un’azienda, non era certo possibile reinstallare tutto da zero copiando solo i dati, occorreva assolutamente clonare il contenuto del vecchio disco su quello nuovo ed ecco come ho proceduto.

I recently had trouble installing/running Debian on my Sun Sparc Ultra 10. Lessons learned:

Dear Lazyweb,

I was trying to boot Debian on a Sun Sparc Ultra 10 box yesterday, without success. I got myself this Sparc box from eBay many months ago, but until yesterday it was merely standing around here and taking up valuable space (just like the other dozen or so computers standing around in my room). So I thought I should really make some use of it, finally...