The one hang up for me is in figuring out how to build the kernel. I get the kernel compilation part; I come from a Gentoo background, so that part is second nature. It's the combining it with the recovery kernel part that I can't wrap my head around, and I can't find a well written tutorial. Is that something I would have to do manually, or does the CM build scripts take care of that automatically? If I had to do it manually, what are the commands to extract, edit, then reassemble the ramdisk? And would I need to mod the install script inside the flashable zip?
If someone could just walk me through that part, I would be willing to take a stab at this device since I own one. While the whole Android build system is still new to me, I've compiled CM for my Nexus 7 so I'm at least familiar with that part of the process, and I've built OmniROM as well. It's building a kernel for a device like this one that I'm not certain about. If I could get over that part and be confident with the process of building a combo recovery and standard kernel that can boot on this guy, even if it's from an older kernel, then I can start looking into porting a newer kernel/recovery and then a newer version of CM (because the way I see it, in order to have a modern ROM on this guy, first we need a modern recovery to install and boot it, correct?).