Nope. Unfortunately I didn't know about it yesterday, and besides, this particular mining rig will have to host other applications too, so perhaps a standard Debian is better for it too.

Thanks for pointing it out, however -- on the next machine which is basically nothing but a PSU, mainboard and 5850 GPU (once I get a spare 5850), I'll definitely try this approach, a bootable USB stick sounds like a sensible way to reduce power consumption. :)