Robert Love's now-famous preempt Linux Kernel patch has finally been integrated into the main tree. Quoth rml, ""I removed all the sched.h dependencies and this reduced the size of the patch greatly. I now use current_thread_info() and none of the header or include hackery from before. I've tested this with and withot preemption enabled with success."

Browse the linux kernel bitkeeper page for details. LinuxDevices has more information.

"Note that the patch was applied to the 2.5 development tree, not the 2.4 stable tree. So the next stable kernel (2.6 or 3.0) will support a compile time option for kernel preemption. Also note that "this is a minimal i386-only patch", though it sounds like the other supported architectures may be added in time.

"You can read more about Robert Love and his preempt patch in our October interview. Also check out Robert's kernel patches page."