Hello Adrian, Adrian Bunk wrote on 08/03/2019: > On Thu, Mar 07, 2019 at 10:11:41PM +0100, Paride Legovini wrote: >> Michael Stone wrote on 07/03/2019: >>> On Thu, Mar 07, 2019 at 09:02:23PM +0100, Holger Wansing wrote: >>>>> I'm actually wondering if this is a good idea.. >>>>> >>>>> There are lot of other packages installing cronjobs and people, I would >>>>> assume, expect that they will run. >> >> cronjobs run even without anacron, they just don't run >> "anac(h)ronistically". > > Which means some won't ever run on a 9 to 5 desktop.
Right, but idea of removing it from desktop-task began with observing that in a default desktop install all the important cron jobs also ship a .timer. >>>>> I would personally revert his patch as long as all the cronjobs have not >>>>> a corresponding systemd .timer >>>> >>>> Any thoughts on this? >>> >>> What's the downside to having anacron there if a .timer supersedes the >>> cron job? >> >> Having a useless service running is itself a downside; I second the >> removal. > > Please explain your usage of the word "useless". > > The output of "ls /etc/cron.daily" is not empty for me. But a few (a good part?) of them will just do nothing if you are using systemd, e.g.: if [ -d /run/systemd/system ]; then # Skip in favour of systemd timer. exit 0 fi This will happen more and more over time and I think it's the practice to favor: having three systems to manage the execution of periodic jobs (systemd timers, cron, anacron) in the default install is IMHO far ideal. I don't doubt there *are* cases where anacron is useful, but we're just talking of removing it from desktop-task, not from the archive, after all. This said, I just wanted to add a data point to the thread, I agree there is no strong reason for the removal -- but there is no strong reason for inclusion neither, and I tend to favor simplicity. >> I'll also mention that anacron has been orphaned almost one >> year ago. > > I'll also mention that "has been orphaned" does not imply anthing about > the quality of the package. I know, and thank our QA team. But I think it tells something on the interest our community has for the package, especially if orphaned for a long time. Paride