fedora experts?

I have been trying to get a recent, unpatched, kernel to work with a fedora system. I am able to get the kernel to boot but things seem to stop for want of an /init program in the root directory. init=/sbin/init does not seem to help. Who has a link to a current boot process explanation? not a howto, but a lecture, covering what is supposed to be happening at each point in a modern complex linux boot?