Skype poll fix

This library is for old Skype <= 4.3. It will not work with modern Skype for Linux 8.

This library is made to reduce Skype CPU consumption by increasing poll (on Linux) or kevent (on Mac OS) call timeouts. It lowers Skype idle CPU load from 4.4% down to 0.9% and improves battery life on my laptop, while making Skype only a bit slower.

How to use

• Compile the source code with make .
• Run Skype with LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/skype-poll-fix.so skype on Linux or with DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES=/path/to/skype-poll-fix.dylib skype on Mac OS.
• On Linux you can edit /usr/share/applications/skype.desktop file to run Skype with skype-poll-fix.so automatically (example for Debian Jessie):
  • Change Exec= string to Exec=env LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/skype-poll-fix.so skype %U .

Configuration

You can configure SET_POLL and MIN_POLL environmental variables. SET_POLL is a poll() or kevent() timeout value which would be set if Skype tries to poll with timeout less than MIN_POLL. Both variables are default to 300 ms.

Example

LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/skype-poll-fix.so MIN_POLL=100 SET_POLL=250 skype

All poll() timeouts less than 100 ms would be set to 250 ms.

Based on Valery Yundin idea.