Linux kernel thread with Linux 2.6.x

[Laurent Lagrange]

Hello everybody,

I'm writing a custom network driver based on a MPC8260 FCC device for a
2.6.9 linux kernel.
In this driver, I need to use specific buffer allocation functions which use
down and up semaphore functions.

As the interrupt handler can't be scheduled, I have made a kernel thread
which waits forever on a semaphore.
This semaphore is set when a received packet interrupt occured. All that
mechanism works but the performances
are very poor.

Is there any solution to increase the kthread priority in the scheduler ?
Is there another solution than the semaphore to quickly wake up a kthread ?

Thanks a lot for your help.
Laurent