[2.4.x] Writing to slow devices (MO, USB) blocks system

[Christian Asam]

I have had this problem for a while now and was wondering, if there is 
some workaround or patch for it:
If I write larger files (maybe >10M) to slow devices (I have a 
USB-1.1-HD and a SCSI-MO where this is a problem) the system freezes 
for a while: In X (4.1) the mouse only moves every couple of seconds, 
sometimes XMMS also is silent for a few seconds but not as often. After 
a while the freezes get more seldom but are still rather frequent.

System:
Duron 800 on KT133/686, IDE Disks, 768M Memory (but no high memory 
support >1G active), 2.4.13 (for some reason my serial digitizer (via 
gpm) dosn't work with newer kernels like 17 or 18).

cu