I think your frustration is due to a little misunderstanding. If the
inability to install the nvidia driver is cause for this dissatisfaction,
then rest assured that it's not the packager's fault. Installing kernel
modules means placing the files in the correct directory.
A real-time kernel, or any kernel on a distro _will_ have some sort of
"extraver" or "localver". It's the extra characters after the
actual linux
version, sometimes/some distros including the -rc or upstream patch version.
Confusing? No worries. Examples galore:
$ uname -r
2.6.25-rt-sidux
$uname -r
2.6.25.4-rt21
Whatever it is, you have to make sure the nvidia stuff go into whatever the
correct -rt kernel directory is in /lib/modules ;) The following are the
steps similar to what a particular distro buildscript takes:
bash NVIDIA-Linux*pkg0.run --extract-only
cd NVIDIA-Linux*pkg0
cd usr/src/nv/
ln -s Makefile.kbuild Makefile
make SYSSRC=/lib/modules/$thelibmoduledirasshownabove/build module
install -m644 nvidia.ko /lib/modules/$asabove/kernel/drivers/video/
depmod -v $asbove
rmmod nvidia
CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE
Maybe there's a command you can use try run a help on the proprietary
executable. Then, there are other packages like ndiswrapper - and oh yeah
catalyst who can forget that one - that may need a little hack or two on the
rt-patched kernel. A checklist:
1) Upstream kernel
2) Upstream kernel patchset
3) RT kernel patchset
4) Apply whatever hacks needed (so far only catalyst/fglrx needs one)
5) Install proprietary module to correct directory
6) Good luck and enjoy!
As for performance, I've always been having better with older kernels as
newer ones roll out. I'm currently on 2.6.23.1-rt11 :) Realtime performance
actually is no longer a problem. It used to be a problem sometime ago, but
after migration to pam security and all that it's become a breeze. On
Windows recording with my laptop's Intel HDA is a no-go @ > 500ms latency +
ASIO-4-All, but on Linux I get 20+-.