Fastest Standalone Boot Solution?

[David Barr]

First of all, kudos to Andrew Ip for blazing a trail exactly where I
want to go :-)  After reading two years' worth of mailing list archives
(!), I see what kind of struggle it's been to get the m810 walkthrough
where it is today.

My question, after looking over the various alternatives, is this:

What Is Going to Provide the Fastest Boot Solution?

I'm going with the pcchips m810clmr (Duron 1.2) board, with 2 generic
512 MB sticks on it.  This will be a standalone full-distro machine, at
least to start with.  Every other piece of hardware that I purchase and
install will be based on whatever is going to produce the shortest
power-up/init/ready-to-rock time.

I believe someone (Eric?) mentioned a month or two ago that a lot of
their machines ended up being solo jobs.  I would be very interested to
hear what that person had to say about speed comparisons.

Regards,
-dBarr.

PS:  ca. 3-5 months ago, it was noted that the pcchips m810 line had a
bit of trouble just hanging for no apparent reason.  I assume this was
taken care of, since the discussion dropped off the list.  Anyone care
to deny or confirm?