Bug#915370: Please drop anacron from task-desktop and task-laptop

[Alexandre Detiste]

>From: Gregor Riepl 
>To: Debian Bug Tracking System <915...@bugs.debian.org>
>Subject: Re: Please drop anacron from task-desktop and task-laptop
>Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2023 17:19:21 +0100
>
>On the other hand, the systemd-cron package provides anacron, so it could be
>installed instead, if the cron dependency should be kept.

Debootstrap would only take into account the first alternative I think,
even if systemd-cron Provides a virtual anacron.

Thanks to наб, systemd-cron has seen a lot of improvement recently
and been rewritten in C++, got an extensive test suite
and also extensive heuristic tables to avoid running useless
legacy crontabs that does nothing under systemd:
   https://wiki.debian.org/systemd-cron
(checkout v2.0+ in testing)

So can we just replace "anacron"
by "systemd-cron" and be done with this old bug ?

On a typical system, the only legacy crontab remaining
to translate is popularity-contest and the rest
is shadowed by native .timer/.service pairs.

Greetings,

Bug#915370: Please drop anacron from task-desktop and task-laptop

[Gregor Riepl]

Package: task-laptop
Version: 3.71
Followup-For: Bug #915370
X-Debbugs-Cc: onit...@gmail.com

The drop didn't happen in buster+1, but there may still be time for bookworm.

FYI: The anacron service was silently disabled by default a while ago due to a
bug, but this was only recently reported: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-
bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1028205

On the other hand, the systemd-cron package provides anacron, so it could be
installed instead, if the cron dependency should be kept.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: bookworm/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable-debug'), (500, 
'testing-proposed-updates-debug'), (500, 'testing-debug'), (500, 'unstable'), 
(500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental-debug'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 6.0.0-6-amd64 (SMP w/16 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Kernel taint flags: TAINT_WARN
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), 
LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages task-laptop depends on:
ii  anacron  2.3-36
ii  tasksel  3.71

Versions of packages task-laptop recommends:
ii  avahi-autoipd   0.8-7
ii  bluetooth   5.66-1
ii  iw  5.19-1
ii  powertop2.14-1+b2
ii  wireless-tools  30~pre9-14
ii  wpasupplicant   2:2.10-10

task-laptop suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information