anacron was added to the desktop-task a long time ago.
The changelog doesn't mention why it was added, but I assume it was to
support systems which are not running 24/7 and to ensure that cron jobs
have a chance to run.

Nowadays, we have systemd .timer units, which handle this issue much
nicer. I checked a default desktop installation, and all important cron
jobs have a corresponding .timer unit.
It thus seems safe to drop anacron from task-desktop.

Hi,

Michael Biebl <biebl@debian.org> wrote:

Any objections on this?


Holger

Makes sense AFAICS...

Hello,

Bug #915370 in tasksel reported by you has been fixed in the
Git repository and is awaiting an upload. You can see the commit
message below and you can check the diff of the fix at:

https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/tasksel/commit/dc2aeaf34aca053b0937575873e1e2453e15e522
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Drop anacron from task-desktop and task-laptop

This dependency is no longer necessary as we have systemd .timer units
nowadays. Such .timer units handle systems which don't run continuously
in a much better way.

Closes: #915370
------------------------------------------------------------------------

(this message was generated automatically)
-- 
Greetings

https://bugs.debian.org/915370

Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com> wrote:

Merged into master.

Tagging this bug as pending.

We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
tasksel, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive.

A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed.  If you
have further comments please address them to 915370@bugs.debian.org,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Holger Wansing <hwansing@mailbox.org> (supplier of updated tasksel package)

(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org)
Format: 1.8
Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2018 20:55:39 +0100
Source: tasksel
Binary: tasksel tasksel-data task-desktop task-gnome-desktop task-kde-desktop task-lxde-desktop task-lxqt-desktop task-xfce-desktop task-cinnamon-desktop task-mate-desktop task-laptop task-web-server task-print-server task-ssh-server task-albanian-desktop task-amharic task-amharic-desktop task-amharic-kde-desktop task-arabic task-arabic-desktop task-arabic-kde-desktop task-asturian task-asturian-desktop task-basque task-basque-desktop task-basque-kde-desktop task-belarusian task-belarusian-desktop task-belarusian-kde-desktop task-bengali task-bengali-desktop task-bengali-kde-desktop task-bosnian task-bosnian-desktop task-bosnian-kde-desktop task-brazilian-portuguese task-brazilian-portuguese-desktop task-brazilian-portuguese-kde-desktop task-british-desktop task-british-kde-desktop task-bulgarian task-bulgarian-desktop task-bulgarian-kde-desktop task-catalan task-catalan-desktop task-catalan-kde-desktop task-chinese-s task-chinese-s-desktop task-chinese-s-kde-desktop
 task-chinese-t task-chinese-t-desktop task-chinese-t-kde-desktop task-croatian task-croatian-desktop task-croatian-kde-desktop task-czech task-czech-desktop task-czech-kde-desktop task-danish task-danish-desktop task-danish-kde-desktop task-dutch task-dutch-desktop task-dutch-kde-desktop task-dzongkha-desktop task-dzongkha-kde-desktop task-english task-esperanto task-esperanto-desktop task-esperanto-kde-desktop task-estonian task-estonian-desktop task-estonian-kde-desktop task-finnish task-finnish-desktop task-finnish-kde-desktop task-french task-french-desktop task-french-kde-desktop task-galician task-galician-desktop task-galician-kde-desktop task-georgian-desktop task-german task-german-desktop task-german-kde-desktop task-greek task-greek-desktop task-greek-kde-desktop task-gujarati task-gujarati-desktop task-gujarati-kde-desktop task-hebrew task-hebrew-desktop task-hebrew-gnome-desktop task-hebrew-kde-desktop task-hindi task-hindi-desktop
 task-hindi-kde-desktop task-hungarian task-hungarian-desktop task-hungarian-kde-desktop task-icelandic task-icelandic-desktop task-icelandic-kde-desktop task-indonesian-desktop task-indonesian-kde-desktop task-irish task-irish-desktop task-irish-kde-desktop task-italian task-italian-desktop task-italian-kde-desktop task-japanese task-japanese-desktop task-japanese-gnome-desktop task-japanese-kde-desktop task-kannada-desktop task-kannada-kde-desktop task-kazakh task-kazakh-desktop task-kazakh-kde-desktop task-khmer task-khmer-desktop task-khmer-kde-desktop task-korean task-korean-desktop task-korean-gnome-desktop task-korean-kde-desktop task-kurdish task-kurdish-desktop task-kurdish-kde-desktop task-latvian task-latvian-desktop task-latvian-kde-desktop task-lithuanian task-lithuanian-desktop task-lithuanian-kde-desktop task-macedonian task-macedonian-desktop task-macedonian-kde-desktop task-malayalam task-malayalam-desktop task-malayalam-gnome-desktop
 task-malayalam-kde-desktop task-marathi task-marathi-desktop task-nepali-desktop task-nepali-kde-desktop task-northern-sami task-northern-sami-desktop task-norwegian task-norwegian-desktop task-norwegian-kde-desktop task-persian task-persian-desktop task-persian-kde-desktop task-polish task-polish-desktop task-polish-kde-desktop task-portuguese task-portuguese-desktop task-portuguese-kde-desktop task-punjabi task-punjabi-desktop task-punjabi-kde-desktop task-romanian task-romanian-desktop task-romanian-kde-desktop task-russian task-russian-desktop task-russian-kde-desktop task-serbian task-serbian-desktop task-serbian-kde-desktop task-sinhala-desktop task-sinhala-kde-desktop task-slovak task-slovak-desktop task-slovak-kde-desktop task-slovenian task-slovenian-desktop task-slovenian-kde-desktop task-south-african-english-desktop task-spanish task-spanish-desktop task-spanish-kde-desktop task-swedish task-swedish-desktop task-swedish-kde-desktop task-tagalog
 task-tamil task-tamil-desktop task-tamil-gnome-desktop task-telugu task-telugu-desktop task-telugu-gnome-desktop task-telugu-kde-desktop task-thai task-thai-desktop task-thai-gnome-desktop task-thai-kde-desktop task-turkish task-turkish-desktop task-turkish-kde-desktop task-ukrainian task-ukrainian-desktop task-ukrainian-kde-desktop task-uyghur-desktop task-uyghur-kde-desktop task-vietnamese-desktop task-vietnamese-kde-desktop task-welsh task-welsh-desktop task-xhosa-desktop task-xhosa-kde-desktop task-cyrillic task-cyrillic-desktop
 task-cyrillic-kde-desktop
Architecture: source
Version: 3.49
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: medium
Maintainer: Debian Install System Team <debian-boot@lists.debian.org>
Changed-By: Holger Wansing <hwansing@mailbox.org>
Description:
 task-albanian-desktop - Albanian desktop
 task-amharic - Amharic environment
 task-amharic-desktop - Amharic desktop
 task-amharic-kde-desktop - Amharic KDE Plasma desktop
 task-arabic - Arabic environment
 task-arabic-desktop - Arabic desktop
 task-arabic-kde-desktop - Arabic KDE Plasma desktop
 task-asturian - Asturian environment
 task-asturian-desktop - Asturian desktop
 task-basque - Basque environment
 task-basque-desktop - Basque desktop
 task-basque-kde-desktop - Basque KDE Plasma desktop
 task-belarusian - Belarusian environment
 task-belarusian-desktop - Belarusian desktop
 task-belarusian-kde-desktop - Belarusian KDE Plasma desktop
 task-bengali - Bengali environment
 task-bengali-desktop - Bengali desktop
 task-bengali-kde-desktop - Bengali KDE Plasma desktop
 task-bosnian - Bosnian environment
 task-bosnian-desktop - Bosnian desktop
 task-bosnian-kde-desktop - Bosnian KDE Plasma desktop
 task-brazilian-portuguese - Brazilian Portuguese environment
 task-brazilian-portuguese-desktop - Brazilian Portuguese desktop
 task-brazilian-portuguese-kde-desktop - Brazilian Portuguese KDE Plasma desktop
 task-british-desktop - British English desktop
 task-british-kde-desktop - British KDE Plasma desktop
 task-bulgarian - Bulgarian environment
 task-bulgarian-desktop - Bulgarian desktop
 task-bulgarian-kde-desktop - Bulgarian KDE Plasma desktop
 task-catalan - Catalan environment
 task-catalan-desktop - Catalan desktop
 task-catalan-kde-desktop - Catalan KDE Plasma desktop
 task-chinese-s - Simplified Chinese environment
 task-chinese-s-desktop - Simplified Chinese desktop
 task-chinese-s-kde-desktop - Simplified Chinese KDE Plasma desktop
 task-chinese-t - Traditional Chinese environment
 task-chinese-t-desktop - Traditional Chinese desktop
 task-chinese-t-kde-desktop - Traditional Chinese KDE Plasma desktop
 task-cinnamon-desktop - Cinnamon
 task-croatian - Croatian environment
 task-croatian-desktop - Croatian desktop
 task-croatian-kde-desktop - Croatian KDE Plasma desktop
 task-cyrillic - Cyrillic environment
 task-cyrillic-desktop - Cyrillic desktop
 task-cyrillic-kde-desktop - Cyrillic KDE Plasma desktop
 task-czech - Czech environment
 task-czech-desktop - Czech desktop
 task-czech-kde-desktop - Czech KDE Plasma desktop
 task-danish - Danish environment
 task-danish-desktop - Danish desktop
 task-danish-kde-desktop - Danish KDE Plasma desktop
 task-desktop - Debian desktop environment
 task-dutch - Dutch environment
 task-dutch-desktop - Dutch desktop
 task-dutch-kde-desktop - Dutch KDE Plasma desktop
 task-dzongkha-desktop - Dzongkha desktop
 task-dzongkha-kde-desktop - Dzongkha KDE Plasma desktop
 task-english - General English environment
 task-esperanto - Esperanto environment
 task-esperanto-desktop - Esperanto desktop
 task-esperanto-kde-desktop - Esperanto KDE Plasma desktop
 task-estonian - Estonian environment
 task-estonian-desktop - Estonian desktop
 task-estonian-kde-desktop - Estonian KDE Plasma desktop
 task-finnish - Finnish environment
 task-finnish-desktop - Finnish desktop
 task-finnish-kde-desktop - Finnish KDE Plasma desktop
 task-french - French environment
 task-french-desktop - French desktop
 task-french-kde-desktop - French KDE Plasma desktop
 task-galician - Galician environment
 task-galician-desktop - Galician desktop
 task-galician-kde-desktop - Galician KDE Plasma desktop
 task-georgian-desktop - Georgian desktop
 task-german - German environment
 task-german-desktop - German desktop
 task-german-kde-desktop - German KDE Plasma desktop
 task-gnome-desktop - GNOME
 task-greek - Greek environment
 task-greek-desktop - Greek desktop
 task-greek-kde-desktop - Greek KDE Plasma desktop
 task-gujarati - Gujarati environment
 task-gujarati-desktop - Gujarati desktop
 task-gujarati-kde-desktop - Gujarati KDE Plasma desktop
 task-hebrew - Hebrew environment
 task-hebrew-desktop - Hebrew desktop
 task-hebrew-gnome-desktop - Hebrew GNOME desktop
 task-hebrew-kde-desktop - Hebrew KDE Plasma desktop
 task-hindi - Hindi environment
 task-hindi-desktop - Hindi desktop
 task-hindi-kde-desktop - Hindi KDE Plasma desktop
 task-hungarian - Hungarian environment
 task-hungarian-desktop - Hungarian desktop
 task-hungarian-kde-desktop - Hungarian KDE Plasma desktop
 task-icelandic - Icelandic environment
 task-icelandic-desktop - Icelandic desktop
 task-icelandic-kde-desktop - Icelandic KDE Plasma desktop
 task-indonesian-desktop - Indonesian desktop
 task-indonesian-kde-desktop - Indonesian KDE Plasma desktop
 task-irish - Irish environment
 task-irish-desktop - Irish desktop
 task-irish-kde-desktop - Irish KDE Plasma desktop
 task-italian - Italian environment
 task-italian-desktop - Italian desktop
 task-italian-kde-desktop - Italian KDE Plasma desktop
 task-japanese - Japanese environment
 task-japanese-desktop - Japanese desktop
 task-japanese-gnome-desktop - Japanese GNOME desktop
 task-japanese-kde-desktop - Japanese KDE Plasma desktop
 task-kannada-desktop - Kannada desktop
 task-kannada-kde-desktop - Kannada KDE Plasma desktop
 task-kazakh - Kazakh environment
 task-kazakh-desktop - Kazakh desktop
 task-kazakh-kde-desktop - Kazakh KDE Plasma desktop
 task-kde-desktop - KDE Plasma
 task-khmer - Khmer environment
 task-khmer-desktop - Khmer desktop
 task-khmer-kde-desktop - Khmer KDE Plasma desktop
 task-korean - Korean environment
 task-korean-desktop - Korean desktop
 task-korean-gnome-desktop - Korean GNOME desktop
 task-korean-kde-desktop - Korean KDE Plasma desktop
 task-kurdish - Kurdish environment
 task-kurdish-desktop - Kurdish desktop
 task-kurdish-kde-desktop - Kurdish KDE Plasma desktop
 task-laptop - laptop
 task-latvian - Latvian environment
 task-latvian-desktop - Latvian desktop
 task-latvian-kde-desktop - Latvian KDE Plasma desktop
 task-lithuanian - Lithuanian environment
 task-lithuanian-desktop - Lithuanian desktop
 task-lithuanian-kde-desktop - Lithuanian KDE Plasma desktop
 task-lxde-desktop - LXDE
 task-lxqt-desktop - LXQt
 task-macedonian - Macedonian environment
 task-macedonian-desktop - Macedonian desktop
 task-macedonian-kde-desktop - Macedonian KDE Plasma desktop
 task-malayalam - Malayalam environment
 task-malayalam-desktop - Malayalam desktop
 task-malayalam-gnome-desktop - Malayalam GNOME desktop
 task-malayalam-kde-desktop - Malayalam KDE Plasma desktop
 task-marathi - Marathi environment
 task-marathi-desktop - Marathi desktop
 task-mate-desktop - MATE
 task-nepali-desktop - Nepali desktop
 task-nepali-kde-desktop - Nepali KDE Plasma desktop
 task-northern-sami - Northern Sami environment
 task-northern-sami-desktop - Northern Sami desktop
 task-norwegian - Norwegian (Bokmaal and Nynorsk) environment
 task-norwegian-desktop - Norwegian (Bokmaal and Nynorsk) desktop
 task-norwegian-kde-desktop - Norwegian KDE Plasma desktop
 task-persian - Persian environment
 task-persian-desktop - Persian desktop
 task-persian-kde-desktop - Persian KDE Plasma desktop
 task-polish - Polish environment
 task-polish-desktop - Polish desktop
 task-polish-kde-desktop - Polish KDE Plasma desktop
 task-portuguese - Portuguese environment
 task-portuguese-desktop - Portuguese desktop
 task-portuguese-kde-desktop - Portuguese KDE Plasma desktop
 task-print-server - print server
 task-punjabi - Punjabi environment
 task-punjabi-desktop - Punjabi desktop
 task-punjabi-kde-desktop - Punjabi KDE Plasma desktop
 task-romanian - Romanian environment
 task-romanian-desktop - Romanian desktop
 task-romanian-kde-desktop - Romanian KDE Plasma desktop
 task-russian - Russian environment
 task-russian-desktop - Russian desktop
 task-russian-kde-desktop - Russian KDE Plasma desktop
 task-serbian - Serbian environment
 task-serbian-desktop - Serbian desktop
 task-serbian-kde-desktop - Serbian KDE Plasma desktop
 task-sinhala-desktop - Sinhala desktop
 task-sinhala-kde-desktop - Sinhala KDE Plasma desktop
 task-slovak - Slovak environment
 task-slovak-desktop - Slovak desktop
 task-slovak-kde-desktop - Slovak KDE Plasma desktop
 task-slovenian - Slovenian environment
 task-slovenian-desktop - Slovenian desktop
 task-slovenian-kde-desktop - Slovenian KDE Plasma desktop
 task-south-african-english-desktop - South African English desktop
 task-spanish - Spanish environment
 task-spanish-desktop - Spanish desktop
 task-spanish-kde-desktop - Spanish KDE Plasma desktop
 task-ssh-server - SSH server
 task-swedish - Swedish environment
 task-swedish-desktop - Swedish desktop
 task-swedish-kde-desktop - Swedish KDE Plasma desktop
 task-tagalog - Tagalog environment
 task-tamil - Tamil environment
 task-tamil-desktop - Tamil desktop
 task-tamil-gnome-desktop - Tamil GNOME desktop
 task-telugu - Telugu environment
 task-telugu-desktop - Telugu desktop
 task-telugu-gnome-desktop - Telugu GNOME desktop environment
 task-telugu-kde-desktop - Telugu KDE Plasma desktop environment
 task-thai  - Thai environment
 task-thai-desktop - Thai desktop
 task-thai-gnome-desktop - Thai GNOME desktop
 task-thai-kde-desktop - Thai KDE Plasma desktop
 task-turkish - Turkish environment
 task-turkish-desktop - Turkish desktop
 task-turkish-kde-desktop - Turkish KDE Plasma desktop
 task-ukrainian - Ukrainian environment
 task-ukrainian-desktop - Ukrainian desktop
 task-ukrainian-kde-desktop - Ukrainian KDE Plasma desktop
 task-uyghur-desktop - Uyghur desktop
 task-uyghur-kde-desktop - Uyghur KDE Plasma desktop
 task-vietnamese-desktop - Vietnamese desktop
 task-vietnamese-kde-desktop - Vietnamese KDE Plasma desktop
 task-web-server - web server
 task-welsh - Welsh environment
 task-welsh-desktop - Welsh desktop
 task-xfce-desktop - Xfce
 task-xhosa-desktop - Xhosa desktop
 task-xhosa-kde-desktop - Xhosa KDE Plasma desktop
 tasksel    - tool for selecting tasks for installation on Debian systems
 tasksel-data - official tasks used for installation of Debian systems
Closes: 914605 915370 917274
Changes:
 tasksel (3.49) unstable; urgency=medium
 .
   * Team upload
 .
   [ Tetsutaro KAWADA ]
   * task-japanese-gnome-desktop: rename icedove back to thunderbird.
     (Closes: #914605)
 .
   [ Roland Clobus ]
   * Replace myspell-en-gb by hunspell-en-gb in task-british-desktop. The
     former is no longer in unstable, and has already been a transitional
     package for the latter.
 .
   [ Michael Biebl ]
   * Drop anacron from task-desktop and task-laptop. Closes: #915370
 .
   [ Holger Wansing ]
   * Remove empty Recommends: from control file, to fix lintian tag.
   * task-lxde-desktop: Fix duplicate Recommends: on libreoffice-gtk2.
   * Remove trailing whitespaces from control file, to fix lintian tag.
   * Remove aspell-de-alt (a dictionary for the old german orthography, which
     is obsolete since 1996) from task-german. Closes: #917274
 .
   [ Updated debconf translations ]
   * Romanian (ro.po) by Andrei POPESCU
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On Mon, 03 Dec 2018 09:44:05 +0100 Michael Biebl <biebl@debian.org> wrote:

Hello,

 >
 > anacron was added to the desktop-task a long time ago.
 > The changelog doesn't mention why it was added, but I assume it was to
 > support systems which are not running 24/7 and to ensure that cron jobs
 > have a chance to run.
 >
 > Nowadays, we have systemd .timer units, which handle this issue much
 > nicer. I checked a default desktop installation, and all important cron
 > jobs have a corresponding .timer unit.
 > It thus seems safe to drop anacron from task-desktop.
 >

I'm actually wondering if this is a good idea..

There are lot of other packages installing cronjobs and people, I would
assume, expect that they will run.

I would personally revert his patch as long as all the cronjobs have not
a corresponding systemd .timer

Any thoughts?

Kind regards,

Laurent Bigonville

[ Forwarding this to -devel ]


Hi,

Laurent Bigonville <bigon@debian.org> wrote:

Any thoughts on this?

Is there still a broad necessity for anacron?
Are there still many packages, that don't rely on systemd timer units?


Holger

Holger Wansing <hwansing@mailbox.org> writes:

Presumably packages that work without systemd, but still need to
periodic activity?

d

Default installations of Debian boot with systemd, and if a sysadmin
chooses to switch to another init system, it's up to them to replace
its functionality (or at least the parts of its functionality they
want). Needing to install anacron in addition to sysvinit seems
reasonable.

Maybe task-desktop should depend on systemd-sysv | anacron?

You're right that it isn't a daemon, and isn't running all the time. It
does result in systemd or cron waking up every hour and making noise in
the syslog even if there is nothing to be done, though.

That doesn't *necessarily* mean you need anacron, or even cron. Many
cron jobs now have a corresponding systemd timer; if you are running
systemd, the cron job starts, detects that it is unnecessary, and exits,
which is an overly-complicated way to do nothing.

For example, if I understand correctly, anacron was initially added to
the GNOME metapackage (and later to task-desktop) for logrotate, but
/etc/cron.daily/logrotate now starts with:

    # skip in favour of systemd timer
    if [ -d /run/systemd/system ]; then
        exit 0
    fi

In a more opinionated distribution the solution would have been "require
systemd, rely on systemd timers, delete cron jobs, move on", but Debian
still supports non-systemd init as a non-default installation, and
anacron/cron don't have a built-in way to skip particular cron jobs other
than open-coding it in the cron job itself.

Regards,
    smcv

Yeah, but it's not something that should require a manual action --
especially considering that implementing this well is easy.
• on all systemd installs, the dependency is moot (no matter the order)
• on non-systemd, your ordering would make apt try to switch inits instead
  of pulling in anacron
• the only case where non-first dependencies are ignored, B-Deps on official
  buildds, doesn't matter for a task package

Which raises a question: why would we want that redundant systemd timer?
The cron job can serve everyone, timer only systemd users.  Twice the work,
twice as many configurations to test -- for no gain.


Meow!

many != all

Something will break (like in the mlocate case), and people might only
start noticing when they are doing fresh installs of buster after the
release.

For buster it is too late in the release cycle for sorting this out
properly for all existing daily/weekly/monthly cronjobs.

cu
Adrian

We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
tasksel, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive.

A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed.  If you
have further comments please address them to 915370@bugs.debian.org,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Holger Wansing <hwansing@mailbox.org> (supplier of updated tasksel package)

(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org)
Format: 1.8
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2019 23:12:54 +0100
Source: tasksel
Architecture: source
Version: 3.51
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: medium
Maintainer: Debian Install System Team <debian-boot@lists.debian.org>
Changed-By: Holger Wansing <hwansing@mailbox.org>
Closes: 823150 824729 910615 915370 922123 923975 924037
Changes:
 tasksel (3.51) unstable; urgency=medium
 .
   * Team upload.
 .
   * Add firefox-l10n-ne-np to task-nepali-desktop. Closes: #922123
   * Re-add anacron to task-desktop and task-laptop (removed in 3.49).
     Closes: #924037, #915370
   * task-catalan-desktop: replace removed myspell-ca by hunspell-ca.
     Closes: #910615
   * task-greek-desktop: remove no longer existing fonts-mgopen. Closes: #823150
   * Some clean-up: (Closes: #923975)
       * Remove several no longer existing packages.
       * Remove some badly outdated documentation packages.
       * Replace some transitional packages by their Depends.
       * Correct name inconsistency in tasks/uyghur-desktop.
   * Replace transitional package myspell-bg by its Depends hunspell-bg.
     Closes: #824729
   * Replace some more myspell-* transitional packages by their Depends
     (hunspell-*).
 .
   [ Updated debconf translations ]
   * Danish (da.po) by Joe Dalton.
   * Norwegian Bokmål (nb.po) by Petter Reinholdtsen.
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I think this was closed by accident

Re-opening this bug report. Dropping anacron from task-desktop/laptop
should still happen. If not for buster, then for buster+1

Please at least downgrade anacron in task-laptop from depends to recommends.

That way I am able to remove anacron and still keep task-laptop.

The drop didn't happen in buster+1, but there may still be time for bookworm.

FYI: The anacron service was silently disabled by default a while ago due to a
bug, but this was only recently reported: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-
bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1028205

On the other hand, the systemd-cron package provides anacron, so it could be
installed instead, if the cron dependency should be kept.

Debootstrap would only take into account the first alternative I think,
even if systemd-cron Provides a virtual anacron.

Thanks to наб, systemd-cron has seen a lot of improvement recently
and been rewritten in C++, got an extensive test suite
and also extensive heuristic tables to avoid running useless
legacy crontabs that does nothing under systemd:
https://wiki.debian.org/systemd-cron
(checkout v2.0+ in testing)

So can we just replace "anacron"
by "systemd-cron" and be done with this old bug ?

On a typical system, the only legacy crontab remaining
to translate is popularity-contest and the rest
is shadowed by native .timer/.service pairs.

Greetings,