[arch-dev-public] Replacing dcron

[Eric Bélanger]

On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 12:04 AM, Allan McRae <allan at archlinux.org> wrote:
> Thomas Bächler wrote:
>>
>> Aaron Griffin schrieb:
>>>>
>>>> Another suggestion was vixie-cron - personally I have been using fcron
>>>> on
>>>> LFS since 2001 or 2002 and later on Arch, and have been happy with it
>>>> all
>>>> those 8 or 9 years. Whatever we do by default, I will keep on using
>>>> fcron.
>>>
>>> It sounds like you're a little hesitant about this. What are our
>>> options here? fcron, bcron, vixie-cron?
>>
>> I wasn't planning on sounding hesitant. I only know fcron and never used
>> vixie or bcron. fcron is very small, fcrontabs are compatible with
>> traditional crontabs, but have an optional extended syntax that supports
>> many advanced features. Did I mention that it is still pretty small?
>>
>> The only thing that one might worry about is that people might say fcron
>> is "unmaintained" - but then I haven't seen a single bug or missing feature
>> in the current release, so maybe this apparent lack of maintenance is a
>> result from a lack of need for maintenance.
>>
>
> All cron's seem to have no releases in recent years...  so I doubt that can
> be used to choose.   So features seem the way to go.  For those that want a
> fairly good guide to the different crons, check out
> http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/cron-guide.xml#doc_chap2
>
> I remember fcron from my LFS days, so I am happy using it.   when a decision
> is not obvious, select from nostalgia. :P
>
> Allan
>

I have no objections in replacing dcron by another alternative. fcron
seems to be the popular choice so far.  Another advantage for fcron is
that it would also replace my anacron package in community.