I will post pictures after I get it completely set up, but I sort of needed a computer up in the train room for JMRI and looking stuff up, since it's a pain to keep going down stairs. So I built a small low power system with an Intel Atom processor and Linux on it. So far so good, JMRI runs and all looks good. This is an ultra low power system, about 20 watts or so, and while it isn't going to be able to play games, I don't need that. JMRI is pretty snappy. All I need to do now is find a place to put my PR3 program track when at home, and hook up my Locobuffer as the dedicated layout connection.
This was fairly inexpensive, too, under $300 including getting a new LCD monitor for it. I did skip a hard drive since I had a spare to use, but I offset that with a wireless card since I have no way to run an ethernet cable up here.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Which flavour of Linux did you use? I have JMRI running on an Acer netbook using Ubuntu 10.10 netbook edition.
Peter
Ubuntu 10.10. The only Linux I will EVER use - ever since I first tried it many years ago, it just WORKS. I did need to compile a driver for the wireless card since it's an oddball cheapy.
I could have built it even sheaper and skipped the DVD drive but I figure this way I can also listen to music in while working if I like, or play railroad DVDs.