Re: Timer doing apt update

[Michael <ml@hemathor.de>]

On Tuesday, February 20, 2024 5:23:35 AM CET, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> I'm not sure how to interpret this combination of things.  Do these
> default settings mean "the update/upgrade script will run, but it won't
> actually do anything"?

kind of...

lines 354-360 (on bookworm) of said script (/usr/lib/apt/apt.systemd.daily) 
checks if 'APT::Periodic::Enable' is set to 1. if not, the script exits 
with 0:

 # check if the user really wants to do something
 AutoAptEnable=1  # default is yes
 eval $(apt-config shell AutoAptEnable APT::Periodic::Enable)

 if [ $AutoAptEnable -eq 0 ]; then
     exit 0
 fi

i very much dislike the fact that my systems do things i am not aware of. i 
don't mind if this timer/service exists, but i do not want it to be enabled 
by default. especially if its default setting is to do nothing (useful, 
critical, necessary)! why add complication to a system and waste its 
resources if it defaults to not doing anything? why not add .timer and 
.service, but keep it disabled by default? admin's choice...

imho it is even easier and more intuitive to enable the timer than to add a 
file in which i change/set an option to prevent an already started process 
to exit prematurely having already wasted system resources.

but that's just me. ymmv...

greetings...