After much nailbiting, I've rebooted into a self-compiled kernel based on the SuSE sources with the realtime-patch applied. The only other change I made from the SuSE source was to change it from generic x86_64 to AMD64. I had to recompile the NVidia and Atmel USB wireless modules, but once I was up and running, I was able to start jack using qjackctl in RT mode. Haven't had a huge amount of time to play with it, but looks good. Weirdly, it wasn't this that was responsible for the sound artefacts I was hearing as a user. After much frustrated investigation, I finally deleted ~/.qt/qjackctlrc and suddenly hydrogen sounds more like a drumkit than a duck! Thanks to everyone who responded to my posts. -- David Haggett