Sometimes, buying a diskless linux computer will be cheaper than building!! In modern days we focus our energy on economy and managing the time efficiently. Gone are the days when you would build everything on your own! Man introduced the concept of mass production (factory having production lines churning out millions of pieces). In the industrialized nation like U.S.A, every product you see is made in mass-production and diskless computers are no exception. There are many companies in USA which manufacture diskless computers in very large quantities.
Checkout the following commercial sites, which are selling diskless linux network-cards and diskless computers. These companies do mass production of Linux Diskless computers selling millions of units and thereby reducing the cost per unit. Each and every fortune 1000 companies in USA will be replacing the MS Windows PCs with diskless computers in near future as diskless linux computers can run both Linux and MS Windows 95 programs (via VMWare BIOS software). VMWare is NOT a emulator but has BIOS which allows you to install Windows 98/NT as guest OS to linux. You can use the 'xhost' command and DISPLAY environment from diskless node to run Windows95/Linux programs. See 'man xhost' on linux. You can also use Virtual Network Computing (VNC) to run Windows95/NT programs on linux diskless nodes. Get VNC from http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc Or you can use WinConnect to access MS Windows applications like MS Office, Outlook etc. But WinConnect needs MS Windows XP/2000/NT server.
Even if you buy diskless linux computer, you may be very much interested in reading this entire document.