I had the exact opposite experience (about 10 years ago, didn't try any audio since on linux): even after all possible RT patches and whatnot we were happy if w

I had the exact opposite experience (about 10 years ago, didn't try any audio since on linux): even after all possible RT patches and whatnot we were happy if we would get skip-free roundtrip latencies of 50mSec on Debian with pretty much top of the line pro soundcards. Might have been bad drivers, or maybe we were just screwing up, but on Windows (with ASIO)/OsX we would just install driver, open control panel, turn down buffer size to minimum and sampling rate to maximum and be looking at about 2mSec of latency with a simple loop I->O test app (IIRC but I'm pretty sure it was 64 samples @ 96kHz)