[gentoo-user] Initramfs or move /usr to /, oh my...

[Tanstaafl]

Creating a new thread for this questions since mine got lost in all of 
the follow-ups...

I would really appreciate a meaningful response to this question (maybe 
I should go ask this on -dev?) - this has the potential to lose me 
forever as a gentoo user (I'm sure none of you are crying over that, but 
*I* am), and I've seen other similar comments... I'm thinking of FreeBSD 
too (and PCBSD for my desktop)...

Anyway...

On 2012-03-17 12:11 AM, Bruce Hill, Jr. 
<daddy@×××××××××××××××××××××.com> wrote:
 > An initramfs which does this is created by
 >> =sys-kernel/genkernel-3.4.25.1 or
 >> =sys-kernel/dracut-017-r1. If you do not want to use these tools, be
 > sure any initramfs you create pre-mounts /usr.

Ok, I have never used genkernel, and have no desire to...

I have no idea what dracut is or how to use it...

I have a remote system that has /usr on a separate partition.

So...

How do I find out if I am actually *using* an initramfs right now (I 
know it is built into the kernel), and

If I am not, how do I do this without using genkernel? Is dracut the 
*only* other option? Is it easy/trivial to set one up manually?

I cannot imagine that gentoo is just going to throw me to the wolves 
like this without providing *in-depth* instructions on how to make sure 
my system will boot after this update, like they did with the 
baselayout-2 update...

Personally, I have no problem with not having a separate /usr any more, 
except that I have 3 remote systems that I manage right now that already 
*have* a separate /usr...

On that note - is it possible, and if so, does anyone have any decent 
detailed How-to's on how I might be able to convert a separate /user to 
one on directly on / on a running system?