One thing that would make my life a lot easier, before 2.4 goes into 
"deep maintenance" mode, would be the addition of workqueues (kthread.c 
and workqueue.c).

Doing so would go a long way towards making drivers more portable, since 
the kthread/wq stuff eliminates a lot of the task/signal mess that a 
driver really shouldn't have to care about.

The interfaces are pretty self-contained, as is shown by the attached 
patch (_not_ for application).

	Jeff