Only scales one CPU

Also note that 0.97 fixes the multi-CPU segfault. At least according to the debian bug report.

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=349066

This should certainly be included, with the growing number of consumer multiprocessor systems (AMD Athlon X2, Intel Core Duo...).

I can confirm that on a core duo T2300 laptop, powernowd leaves 2nd core at full speed, and that 0.97 does not have this problem.

This update is very important if Dapper is to be competitive on multi-core mobile systems which are getting very popular.

The changelog looks fairly conservative:

(2-12-06)
v0.97 Better handling of multi-core/HT cpus.
         Uses affected_cpus file sysfs file.
         Fix Segfault on exit on SMP systems.
         Documentation updates.

and it's available in Debian unstable without any scary bugs. I'm OK with a freeze exception to get this in.

Yes please, I request an UVF for this on March 23rd after requesting Bdale to upload the new version into Debian so that it could be synced.

From: Paul Sladen
To: Matt Zimmerman, Colin Watson
cc: Daniel Silverstone
Subject: UVF exception for 'powernowd' 0.96 -> 0.97

Powernowd is a system of initscripts to detect the CPU type and a daemon to
scale the CPU frequency for energy conservation and heat reduction.

The new upstream version fixes some SMP issues, such as those found on
recent Core-Duo systems.

  http://www.deater.net/john/powernowd.html
  NEW! (2/12/2006) Version 0.97 ("Lets try to make SMP work right this
  time")

  What's New (2-12-06)
  There were quite a few minor SMP bugs in powernowd 0.96. It would work,
  but not wuite optimally. Especially on multi-socket, multi-core systems. Now
  that I have an Athlon X2, I was able to see what was wrong myself and fix
  it. There may still be a few bugs, but things should work much better
  now. I also changed the thread detection logic to use the cpufreq 'affected_cpus'
  file. This should be a lot more reliable.

Bdale has done some testing and uploaded this to Debian at my request
(currently sitting in incoming). Sadly his changelog doesn't anything
interesting.

  powernowd (0.97-1) unstable; urgency=low
  .
   * new upstream version, closes: #349066
   * freshen policy version, debhelper version

There are a couple of deltas that need merging (eg. rc.d load order);

  https://launchpad.net/bugs/34115

is the bug I'd like to close.

powernowd (0.97-1ubuntu1) dapper; urgency=low

  * New upstream release, UVF exception granted by mdz
  * freshen policy version and debhelper version as per bdale's upload in
    Debian
  * Closes: launchpad #41432, #34115 and #30984

 -- Daniel Silverstone <email address hidden> Mon, 8 May 2006 17:53:20 +0100