diff --git a/include/wx/unix/app.h b/include/wx/unix/app.h
index ca3f3744c0..812783bcef 100644
--- a/include/wx/unix/app.h
+++ b/include/wx/unix/app.h
@@ -11,10 +11,17 @@
 //Ensure that sigset_t is being defined
 #include <signal.h>
 
+class wxFDIODispatcher;
+class wxFDIOHandler;
+class wxWakeUpPipe;
+
 // wxApp subclass implementing event processing for console applications
 class WXDLLIMPEXP_BASE wxAppConsole : public wxAppConsoleBase
 {
 public:
+    wxAppConsole();
+    virtual ~wxAppConsole();
+
     // override base class initialization
     virtual bool Initialize(int& argc, wxChar** argv);
 
@@ -38,6 +45,14 @@ public:
     // handlers for them
     void CheckSignal();
 
+    // Register the signal wake up pipe with the given dispatcher.
+    //
+    // This is not used anywhere yet but will be soon.
+    //
+    // The pointer to the handler used for processing events on this descriptor
+    // is returned so that it can be deleted when we no longer needed it.
+    wxFDIOHandler* RegisterSignalWakeUpPipe(wxFDIODispatcher& dispatcher);
+
 private:
     // signal handler set up by SetSignalHandler() for all signals we handle,
     // it just adds the signal to m_signalsCaught -- the real processing is
@@ -52,4 +67,8 @@ private:
     // the signal handlers
     WX_DECLARE_HASH_MAP(int, SignalHandler, wxIntegerHash, wxIntegerEqual, SignalHandlerHash);
     SignalHandlerHash m_signalHandlerHash;
+
+    // pipe used for wake up signal handling: if a signal arrives while we're
+    // blocking for input, writing to this pipe triggers a call to our CheckSignal()
+    wxWakeUpPipe *m_signalWakeUpPipe;
 };
diff --git a/src/unix/appunix.cpp b/src/unix/appunix.cpp
index 5c59dec71c..f0733e2ada 100644
--- a/src/unix/appunix.cpp
+++ b/src/unix/appunix.cpp
@@ -20,6 +20,10 @@
 #endif
 
 #include "wx/evtloop.h"
+#include "wx/scopedptr.h"
+#include "wx/unix/private/wakeuppipe.h"
+#include "wx/private/fdiodispatcher.h"
+#include "wx/private/fdioeventloopsourcehandler.h"
 
 #include <signal.h>
 #include <unistd.h>
@@ -29,6 +33,58 @@
     #define SA_RESTART 0
 #endif
 
+// ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+// Helper class calling CheckSignal() on wake up
+// ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+namespace
+{
+
+class SignalsWakeUpPipe : public wxWakeUpPipe
+{
+public:
+    // Ctor automatically registers this pipe with the event loop.
+    SignalsWakeUpPipe()
+    {
+        m_source = wxEventLoopBase::AddSourceForFD
+                                    (
+                                        GetReadFd(),
+                                        this,
+                                        wxEVENT_SOURCE_INPUT
+                                    );
+    }
+
+    virtual void OnReadWaiting()
+    {
+        // The base class wxWakeUpPipe::OnReadWaiting() needs to be called in order
+        // to read the data out of the wake up pipe and clear it for next time.
+        wxWakeUpPipe::OnReadWaiting();
+
+        if ( wxTheApp )
+            wxTheApp->CheckSignal();
+    }
+
+    virtual ~SignalsWakeUpPipe()
+    {
+        delete m_source;
+    }
+
+private:
+    wxEventLoopSource* m_source;
+};
+
+} // anonymous namespace
+
+wxAppConsole::wxAppConsole()
+{
+    m_signalWakeUpPipe = NULL;
+}
+
+wxAppConsole::~wxAppConsole()
+{
+    delete m_signalWakeUpPipe;
+}
+
 // use unusual names for arg[cv] to avoid clashes with wxApp members with the
 // same names
 bool wxAppConsole::Initialize(int& argc_, wxChar** argv_)
@@ -41,14 +97,23 @@ bool wxAppConsole::Initialize(int& argc_, wxChar** argv_)
     return true;
 }
 
+// The actual signal handler. It does as little as possible (because very few
+// things are safe to do from inside a signal handler) and just ensures that
+// CheckSignal() will be called later from SignalsWakeUpPipe::OnReadWaiting().
 void wxAppConsole::HandleSignal(int signal)
 {
     wxAppConsole * const app = wxTheApp;
     if ( !app )
         return;
 
+    // Register the signal that is caught.
     sigaddset(&(app->m_signalsCaught), signal);
-    app->WakeUpIdle();
+
+    // Wake up the application for handling the signal.
+    //
+    // Notice that we must have a valid wake up pipe here as we only install
+    // our signal handlers after allocating it.
+    app->m_signalWakeUpPipe->WakeUpNoLock();
 }
 
 void wxAppConsole::CheckSignal()
@@ -66,6 +131,27 @@ void wxAppConsole::CheckSignal()
     }
 }
 
+wxFDIOHandler* wxAppConsole::RegisterSignalWakeUpPipe(wxFDIODispatcher& dispatcher)
+{
+    wxCHECK_MSG( m_signalWakeUpPipe, false, "Should be allocated" );
+
+    // we need a bridge to wxFDIODispatcher
+    //
+    // TODO: refactor the code so that only wxEventLoopSourceHandler is used
+    wxScopedPtr<wxFDIOHandler>
+        fdioHandler(new wxFDIOEventLoopSourceHandler(m_signalWakeUpPipe));
+
+    if ( !dispatcher.RegisterFD
+                     (
+                      m_signalWakeUpPipe->GetReadFd(),
+                      fdioHandler.get(),
+                      wxFDIO_INPUT
+                     ) )
+        return NULL;
+
+    return fdioHandler.release();
+}
+
 // the type of the signal handlers we use is "void(*)(int)" while the real
 // signal handlers are extern "C" and so have incompatible type and at least
 // Sun CC warns about it, so use explicit casts to suppress these warnings as
@@ -80,6 +166,13 @@ bool wxAppConsole::SetSignalHandler(int signal, SignalHandler handler)
     const bool install = (SignalHandler_t)handler != SIG_DFL &&
                          (SignalHandler_t)handler != SIG_IGN;
 
+    if ( !m_signalWakeUpPipe )
+    {
+        // Create the pipe that the signal handler will use to cause the event
+        // loop to call wxAppConsole::CheckSignal().
+        m_signalWakeUpPipe = new SignalsWakeUpPipe();
+    }
+
     struct sigaction sa;
     memset(&sa, 0, sizeof(sa));
     sa.sa_handler = (SignalHandler_t)&wxAppConsole::HandleSignal;