Bug#913583: Drop anacron from gnome-core (and task-desktop)

[Michael Biebl]

Package: gnome-core
Version: 1:3.22+12
Severity: normal

Hi,

investigating, why anacron is installed on my system, it seems to be
pulled in via Recommends of gnome-core and task-desktop.

Looking for the original reason, why anacron was added, I found:

meta-gnome3 (1:3.8+7) unstable; urgency=medium

  [ Josselin Mouette ]
  * gnome-core recommends anacron, because some of the GNOME packages go»
    to the brink of unusability if nothing rotate logs.

The changelog for tasksel is not particularly helpful:

tasksel (2.58) unstable; urgency=low

  [ Per Olofsson ]
  * Add anacron to desktop task.

Regarding log rotation: nowadays, logrotate ships a native .timer unit,
which handles this task in a much better way then anacron.

Basically, all the important tasks afaics ship a native .timer unit
besides the legacy cron jobs, so we don't really need anacron anymore to
properly support systems which aren't running 24/7.


I therefor think we should consider dropping anacron from both
meta-packages, to have one less (useless) daemon installed by default.

Thoughts, comments, concerns?

Michael

-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (200, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 4.18.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages gnome-core depends on:
ii  adwaita-icon-theme            3.30.0-1
ii  at-spi2-core                  2.30.0-4
ii  baobab                        3.30.0-1
ii  caribou                       0.4.21-5
ii  dconf-cli                     0.30.0-1
ii  dconf-gsettings-backend       0.30.0-1
ii  eog                           3.28.4-1
ii  epiphany-browser              3.30.1-1
ii  evince                        3.30.2-1
ii  evolution-data-server         3.30.2-2
ii  firefox                       63.0.1-1
ii  fonts-cantarell               0.111-2
ii  gdm3                          3.30.1-1
ii  gedit                         3.30.2-1
ii  gkbd-capplet                  3.26.0-3
ii  glib-networking               2.58.0-1
ii  gnome-backgrounds             3.30.0-1
ii  gnome-bluetooth               3.28.2-2
ii  gnome-calculator              3.30.1-1
ii  gnome-characters              3.30.0-1
ii  gnome-contacts                3.30.1-1
ii  gnome-control-center          1:3.30.2-1
ii  gnome-disk-utility            3.30.1-1
ii  gnome-font-viewer             3.30.0-1
ii  gnome-keyring                 3.28.2-1
ii  gnome-logs                    3.30.0-1
ii  gnome-menus                   3.13.3-11
ii  gnome-online-accounts         3.30.0-1
ii  gnome-online-miners           3.30.0-1
ii  gnome-session                 3.30.1-1
ii  gnome-settings-daemon         3.30.1.2-1
ii  gnome-shell                   3.30.1-3
ii  gnome-shell-extensions        3.30.1-1
ii  gnome-software                3.30.1-1
ii  gnome-sushi                   3.30.0-1
ii  gnome-system-monitor          3.30.0-1
ii  gnome-terminal                3.30.2-1
ii  gnome-themes-extra            3.28-1
ii  gnome-user-docs               3.30.1-1
ii  gnome-user-share              3.28.0-1
ii  gsettings-desktop-schemas     3.28.1-1
ii  gstreamer1.0-packagekit       1.1.11-1
ii  gstreamer1.0-plugins-base     1.14.4-1
ii  gstreamer1.0-plugins-good     1.14.4-1
ii  gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio       1.14.4-1
ii  gvfs-backends                 1.38.0-2
ii  gvfs-fuse                     1.38.0-2
ii  libatk-adaptor                2.30.0-2
ii  libcanberra-pulse             0.30-6
ii  libglib2.0-bin                2.58.1-2
ii  libpam-gnome-keyring          3.28.2-1
ii  libproxy1-plugin-gsettings    0.4.15-3
ii  libproxy1-plugin-webkit       0.4.15-3
ii  nautilus                      3.30.3-1
ii  pulseaudio                    12.2-2
ii  sound-theme-freedesktop       0.8-2
ii  system-config-printer-common  1.5.11-3
ii  system-config-printer-udev    1.5.11-3
ii  totem                         3.26.2-1
ii  tracker                       2.1.4-1
ii  yelp                          3.30.0-1
ii  zenity                        3.30.0-1

Versions of packages gnome-core recommends:
ii  anacron                          2.3-26
ii  libproxy1-plugin-networkmanager  0.4.15-3
ii  network-manager-gnome            1.8.18-2

Versions of packages gnome-core suggests:
pn  gnome  <none>

-- no debconf information