Bug#318191: nvram-wakeup starts 5 minutes early

[Hamish Moffatt]

Package: nvram-wakeup
Version: 0.97-7
Severity: normal

nvram-wakeup always configures the BIOS to start the system 5 minutes
earlier than requested. This is confusing and not well documented.

The -s parameter apparently says that you want the system "up and
running" by that time. nvram-wakeup allows 5 minutes to boot up; that
number is hard-coded in constant WAKEUP_BEFORE in nvram-wakeup.h.
That constant is mentioned briefly in README.gz, but its value is not
given.

It would be more intuitive if you just told nvram-wakeup the time you
wanted the system to power back on. Let the user worry about setting it
early if they need to.

So, my suggestions:

1. At least document that it will boot 5 minutes early in
nvram-wakeup(1).

2. Better yet, allow the early time to be configurable. This is probably
the best bet for backwards compatibility.

3. Best yet, set WAKEUP_BEFORE to zero.

Hamish

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.10
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Versions of packages nvram-wakeup depends on:
ii  debconf                     1.4.51       Debian configuration management sy
ii  libc6                       2.3.2.ds1-22 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  makedev                     2.3.1-78     creates device files in /dev

nvram-wakeup recommends no packages.

-- debconf information:
* nvram-wakeup/install_instruction: