Latest version of the staircase cpu scheduler (v8.1) is available for 
2.6.8.1 and 2.6.9-rc1

http://ck.kolivas.org/patches/2.6/

Cheers,
Con

P.S. This is just a heads up since it was pointed out to me if I don't 
announce this on lkml people don't know it is being actively maintained.