Kernel 2.2 upgrade?

[Ruchira Datta <datta@math.berkeley.edu>]

I am working on an important project with a rapidly approaching deadline.
I have a Pentium II running Debian Gnu/Linux 2.1, although I have installed 
quite a few packages from potato manually (i.e., by downloading them and saying
dpkg -iGREB <deb-filename>).  I am running kernel version 2.0.35, a
custom compiled kernel (only configuration changes, no kernel hacks or
anything).

For the project I'm working on I bought an Epson Stylus Color 900 printer.
However, it prints very slowly from Linux.  I have seen on various mailing
list archives that this is a known problem and it was fixed by Andrea
Arcangeli in some 2.1 kernel.  

I was hoping that getting only a new version of tunelp (in util-linux) from
potato would fix the problem, since Arcangeli said it is solved by saying
tunelp /dev/lp? -T on
to set TRUST_IRQ on.  However, when I tried this on my current system saying

tunelp /dev/lp1 -i 7 -T on

I got 

tunelp: ioctl: Invalid argument
/dev/lp1 using IRQ 7

I think this option of tunelp might be meant to work with the new parport 
driver in the new kernel, not the old lp driver that I have.  (Incidentally,
I don't know whether to file this as a dependency bug or not.)

So, it looks like I have to upgrade to kernel version 2.2.  But I am very
antsy about doing this, because I can't afford to have a broken system.
Rather than risk that I would go back to my old though unsatisfactory
printer for the duration of the project or move the whole project to 
my Windows NT partition (which is fairly trivial, as it's in TeX).  Still, 
I would prefer to continue on Linux with the new printer if that is possible.  

I don't feel comfortable upgrading to potato until it is actually released.
But how imminent is release?  On the other hand I don't know if I can
just install a version 2.2 kernel image package the same way I installed
other packages from potato.  I am worried this would break many other
things.  At least the kmod thing would break other packages, it seems to
me.

I have seen an RPM that has parport_pc.c for kernel version 2.0.35, but
it seems to be only for Sparc.  Was the parport driver backported to
kernel 2.0.35 (or some other 2.0 kernel)?

I would greatly appreciate any help or advice anyone can give me.  

Thanks in advance,

Ruchira Datta
datta@math.berkeley.edu