I looked at the code more in depth and it appears that all the calls to str.lower() in softwarecenter/db/update.py are applied on ASCII-only strings, therefore the overhead of using a locale-independent translation table is not needed.
For details, see the freedesktop specification for desktop entries: http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/ar01s05.html. The relevant keys here are "Type", "Categories" and "X-AppInstall-Ignore", all of which are non-localized strings.
I looked at the code more in depth and it appears that all the calls to str.lower() in softwarecenter/ db/update. py are applied on ASCII-only strings, therefore the overhead of using a locale-independent translation table is not needed.
For details, see the freedesktop specification for desktop entries: http:// standards. freedesktop. org/desktop- entry-spec/ latest/ ar01s05. html. Ignore" , all of which are non-localized strings.
The relevant keys here are "Type", "Categories" and "X-AppInstall-