Enough wakeups in Python programs

Yesterday I released two new releases of PyGObject and PyGTK. The most important change in both of releases is the support of a new API, available only in the svn version of Python which will prevent gobject and gtk from waking up once every 100 ms.

This should allow the CPU to be idle longer and thus save battery life, for your desktop and for children.

I would like to thank Guido van Rossum, Adam Olsen and Gustavo Carneiro for making sure that Python has enough support for this to be possible.

Unfortunately, it will take some time before this is widely used because it will only be included in Python 2.6. However, for OLPC the best option is probably to apply the patch from python issue 1583. Perhaps Linux distributors could do the same?

This entry was posted in Blogroll, General, GNOME, olpc, PyGTK, Python. Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to Enough wakeups in Python programs

  1. Scott says:

    Awesome, I am excited to see this. Can you perhaps explain in a little more detail under which situations this should and should not be used? I develop a pygtk app that uses threading and appears to get ~10 wakeups per second according to powertop. Should I have any concerns with using this?

    (Btw, it’s nearly impossible for me to see what are links in your text.)

  2. dx says:

    You know, this is great news. I have some users that are laptop fans and complained with this.. when we found the python bug we thought it won’t be fixed, ever.

    Hope the python patch gets in every distro 👿

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *