Ultra-Quiet Linux Boxes?

Percival asks: "For both noise and power-consumption reasons, I would like to build a silent linux box (i.e: no hard drive, no CPU fan, no PS fan). In my case, I need the box to IP masquerade as well as serve small print jobs through samba, but I can see many uses for a silent linux box. I would like to learn how to build a linux bootdisk that would load everything necessary into a ramdisk. The bootdisk HOWTO is very helpful, but it does not really address building a permanent linux system on a floppy, being aimed at rescue and tool disk creation. (The particulars: 2.2v Pentium MMX CPU with large heat sink, small, low-power PS, floppy disk, motherboard, two NICs, HP LaserIIp). Would I be better-off going with a diskless system (I would rather not have to rely on another linux box to boot)? Is this a pipe dream? "