hi
the new kernel introduces some new features:
you can now choose your io scheduler by using the elevator option on boot.
4 schedulers are available, else "as" is chosen as default.
elevator= [IOSCHED] Format: {"as"|"cfq"|"deadline"|"noop"} See Documentation/block/as-iosched.txt and Documentation/block/deadline-iosched.txt for details.
"as" is default "cfq" should be for workstations "deadline" for some kind of databases
discussion can be done here: IO Schedulers
CD-Burning: the cdburning patch is not needed anymore.I was able to burn cds with k3b.cdrecord should'nt run as suid anymore, else it may fail. The cdburner devices now need readwrite permissions for burning as user.
USB-Sticks: sd_mod module is not longer needed, usb-storage does the job. If you are using hotplug no problem here.
Printing: Parport modules are now loaded by hotplug too,so you can remove them from modules list in rc.conf. usblp is also loaded dynamically, for lp, sorry don't know (maybe not needed anymore)
Sound: If your soundcard is recognized correctly by hotplug all is fine you only need the right permissions for your device and you are done.
for general discussion about 2.6.10: Kernel 2.6.10