[NMLUG] Real Time Options

[aaron at boim.com (Aaron NMLUG-EV)]

I am looking into a real-time LINUX project.
I have done some real-time before, but never with LINUX.

It would be a video tracker.  Needs to take in video data,
compute a track point (quickly) and send a command to
servos(quickly).   It would concurrently (asynchronously)
do some less time-critical video processing.
(i.e.  updating tracking algorithm parameters)

I would like to try this on a plain, vanilla, dual-core AMD
box.

I guess one might call this "hard" real-time.
I want to compute the tracking offest and servo commands
in a very stable, quick manner.  The other stuff is low
priority.

Any tips on which flavor of Real-Time linux I should look into?

I hear that some let you work in user space, but they may
have more timing lag and jitter.  I would be willing to use
a flavor that does the real-time more like kernel modules,
communicating with the lower-priority (user-land) stuff with
shared memory or something.

As another aside...  is there a commercial compiler for AMD
which produces faster, more "optimized" code than GNU?
Like icc (the Intel C compiler), but for AMD, not Intel?

-- 
Aaron Birenboim         \    I have an inferiority complex,
Albuquerque, NM, USA     \       but its not a very good one.
aaron at birenboim.com    \
http://aaron.birenboim.com \