Background: I want to get the most CPU power out of a limited budget, for use with a research project involving signal processing. So far, apart from buying a refurbished Mac, the best solution seems to be building an OpenMOSIX cluster using Athlon-XPs.
I plan to use a "master" computer with a slightly faster CPU than the slaves, and fitted with a full-function m/board and peripherals. The master does not need to run LinuxBIOS, but it's existence means it should be easy to build kernel variants to test, without risking loss of machine functionality.
To keep the cost of each slave as low as possible, I want to eliminate all storage hardware from them, including floppy drive. This means booting Linux over NFS, and/or installing part of it in the BIOS chip. Hence my interest in LinuxBIOS. If I will need significant extra hardware to reliably install LinuxBIOS, I might just as well boot from floppy.
So far, I've identified a PC-Chips 810 board from one of my suppliers: http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=2050 which will be fitted with an Athlon-XP 2000+, some RAM, a case, a PSU, and nothing else whatsoever. Total slave cost in this configuration is under £160 including VAT.
Because this will be used in an academic Engineering department, there will probably be a Flash and/or EEPROM programmer lying around somewhere, that I can use rather than swapping BIOS chips.
Can anyone provide guidance on my chances of success, and how easy this is likely to be?