Should packages depend on cron?

[Mark Mickan <mmickan@ozemail.com.au>]

Hi all,

I've just installed a minimal hamm system on a spare
partition. Here's my feedback.

I only installed it for testing new packages, so it's
only required packages plus gcc and a few necessary
compiling tools and libraries.

I didn't install cron, but some packages put files in
/etc/cron.{daily,weekly,monthly} !

As I see it, we have a few choices with this...

1. Leave it as it is, because it doesn't actually
   "break" anything (in most cases).  This could be
   a problem because users may not realise why their
   hard drive is filling up (i.e. log files are getting
   bigger).

2. If your package uses cron, then it should depend on
   it.

3. If your package uses cron, then dpkg-shlibdeps should
   add the dependency automatically (or perhaps debstd?)

4. Any other options?


I started with some old 1.2 boot disks and then upgraded
from the ftp site. This may have changed already, but does
the initial install step through connecting to an ISP?
I needed to change /etc/ppp.chatscript, /etc/ppp.options_out
(changed /dev/modem to /dev/ttyS3 in my case) and
/etc/resolv.conf (added nameserver lines). If we aren't
already doing this I think it should be interactively set
up in the initial install in hamm.


Everything else went very smoothly (well, except for the
three or four passes required by dselect, but that will
be fixed by deity, won't it?).

Thanks,

Mark Mickan
mmickan@ozemail.com.au


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