[arch-general] Change Arch's default crond

[Thomas S Hatch]

On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 9:24 PM, David C. Rankin <
drankinatty at suddenlinkmail.com> wrote:

> On 04/06/2011 04:43 PM, Sander Jansen wrote:
>
>> This seems to be a monthly recurring discussion. How about not
>> providing any default, just put all the different cron(s) in extra?
>> I think eventually systemd will provide a cron-like service :)
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Sander
>>
>
> Oh no, every distro needs a default cron -- matters not what it is called,
> it is fundamental to many server packages that require some type of cron
> functionality.
>
> It seems that keeping a default cron makes sense. To me, I don't need any
> of the advanced features, but I do need something to sweep for new
> addresses, faxes, etc..
>
> From a user standpoint (not that Arch is an entry level distro by any
> stretch), but nevertheless, the new user working with Arch will be far
> better served by having a basic cron in place rather than not having one and
> experiencing dependency questions later in the install and be left
> scratching his head.
>
> Upstream stability makes sense. If redhat is behind cronie, then that seems
> like the logical choice. Otherwise, we are bound to repeat this discussion
> 12 months from now when fcron or dcron has problems that are not being
> fixed.
>
> --
> David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
>

Thanks for your input David, I think that it is very clear that we need to
consider replacing dcron with either fcron or cronie, and we should evaluate
what we want to see in the default cron daemon.

I don't think that a debate about "is fcron better than cronie" is in order,
but rather an evaluation of what experience we want to present the everyday
Arch user to. There is no question that both cron daemons are viable
options, and that a user can change between them if they want.

So the question I would pose, what type of cron system should be present on
an Arch system by default?

I would say that we should consider compatibility with vixie cron syntax -
this is and has been the expected syntax for the default cron daemon for a
LONG time and avoids hindering Arch Linux adoption.

What other things do we think should be presented to Arch users by default?
 I think that this question will better assist us in making a decision about
a cron daemon. I have no doubt that fcron and cronie are capable and feature
rich cron daemons, but what gives the Arch users the best experience by
default?