Add 8GB USB thumb drive into the equation and you'll be fine  
I'm making detailed tutorial so it is not finished yet. You can put your first GNU/Linux on a USB before i finish it   Yust follow http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows and download OS from e.g. http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop

Note that it will be tutorial only for miner setup, so no sensitive data will be on the USB thus no encryption of the file system is necessary