Best way forward is to get hold one of the MIPS / ARM board and download debians cross compilation kit ( as far as I know on Debian
The low cost option is to buy a DSL502 broadband router of Dlink for about Rs. 1800, open it, you will find a nice MIPS CPU with lots of memory, and silently running linux. Google and you will find, source, compiler, etc. for this router. ENJOY!!
Warm Regards, Mukund Deshmukh, Beta Computronics Pvt Ltd, 10/1 IT Park, Parsodi, Nagpur -440022.