[LAD] hard realtime performance synth

Hi, Where to start? I have a Dell 7000 laptop and I'm wondering if it can be a music synthesizer(something like a Minimoog). If not, why not? I know there are much more powerful machines out but that's beside the point. If the goal is a dedicated performance grade synth(as in it sounds good and doesn't cut out or lock up on a whim) is there some intrinsic reason why such hardware cannot be utilized. The distributions(Ubuntu studion, PureDyne etc) typically have a heavy footprint and stuff that many times seems superfluous. If one starts trying to cut pieces out of distribution(via the standard packaging mechanisms) you end up with slightly to very crippled systems. On the other hand, I have a Roland JV1010 tone box that is relatively stable and I doubt has faster or more sophisticated processing than in the Dell. Part of the reason I'm asking is I'm wondering if the following would be viable 1. Implement a synth on a hard real time platform. RTAI or RTLinux. Such a system would boot up as a dedicated synth aka cut out stuff unnecessary for other than sound control/production 2. Characteristics of a synth could be set while in a normal Linux environment. sorry bout the slight ramble but that's enuff to start off david