Need help with Asus A8N-E nForce 4 Ultra install

[steve2267]

I am currently wading through several forums, conducting searches, and Googling. As I am swamped in trying to read through many threads, web pages etc, and none seem to answer my question(s) directly, I thought I may as well post while I continue reading...

Background: I am trying to build a 4-8 node Linux Beowulf cluster to run CFD software (Aerosoft's GASP 4.2 for those that are curious). I am using Athlon 64s (3200+ Venice CPUs). My choice is either Asus A8V (Via chipset) boards, or (preferred), Asus A8N-E boards with possibly an A8N5X and A8N-SLI board in the mix. The cluster will have a "head" node with the disk storage (320GB Seagate SATA disks), DVD burner (Samsung IDE DVD burner as master on 2nd PATA controller, GeForce 6200 Turbo PCI-E 16X board, and the remaining nodes will be diskless, headless (i.e. chassis, powersupply, motherboard, CPU, and ram only).

Here are my questions. RTFM answers are welcome, but links to the AFM (appropriate fm) are requested:

1. Do any Linux distros install from DVD (or CD, but DVD preferred) cleanly onto nForce 4 Ultra boards (in my case, again, Asus A8N-E + Athlon64 Venice 3800+, PATA IDE DVD burner, SATA primary boot disk on SATA-1)?
   
2. My preference is for Debian Linux. I have Sarge v3.1r0a on DVD. The unofficial Sarge release of Debian is up to 3.1r2 released in April 2006, but it does not include complete 64 bit everything. The unofficial AMD64 Debian release is dated June 2005, and I'm unsure if it fully supports the nForce 4 Ultra chipset. Should Debian work? Or should I switch to a different distro? I know the CFD software will work on Red Hat Fedora Core, Suse SLES 9 (so I'm assuming "regular" Suse 9, and Suse 10 will work as well).
   
3. Should I be able to install Linux straight onto a SATA-2 (3 gb/s) disk on channel SATA-1? Or is installation onto a SATA disk as the primary boot disk on an Asus A8N-E (nForce 4 Ultra) motherboard problematic? Alternatively, I could install a 60GB PATA disk as the boot disk, although I'd rather not.
   

I kind of gather that the general Linux install process onto a recent nVidia chipset motherboard (e.g. nForce 4 Ultra, nForce4-SLI) involves installing Linux "normally" but selecting NO GUI during the install. Then once a Level 3 install is complete, install the nVidia-supplied motherboard chipset and GeForce drivers separately -- possibly from floppy, CD/DVD, or USB jumpdrive... since the motherboard NIC may not yet be working (esp. if it requires the nVidia drivers).

Links to articles are welcome. Pointers are welcome. Calling me stupid is welcome, as long as you point stupid to some useful information.

Thanks for any help.