Dear Maintainer, I have a use case for running both ntp and chrony packages. The Debian APT is using 'Conflicts: time-daemon' in chrony and ntp packages. We cannot EVER install both packages due to this 'Conflicts' metatag. My use case here: * ntp is the upstream interface and is using its own encryption. * chrony is the downstream broadcasting NTP protocol and is using its own encryption. * systemd-timesyncd does not support encryption (v247), so it got ignored. Nothing we can do would allow the installation of both packages. ALTERNATIVE APPROACH -------------------- One thing that MAY work for all is to split out the packages into * ntp-client-only (which has the APT 'Conflict: chrony, systemd-timesyncd' * ntp-server-client (has the APT 'Conflict: ntp-client-only' * chrony-client-only (which has the APT 'Conflict: ntp, systemd-timesyncd' * chrony-server-client (which has the APT 'Conflict: chrony-client-only' Suggessted *-client-only settings --------------------------------- Only the *-client-only package would have the default settings for desktop, dynamic IP interface, et. al. These *-client-only packages would have THE apt metatag setting of covering old naming-convention packages with 'Conflicts: [chrony|ntp|systemd-timesyncd]' Suggested *-server-client settings ---------------------------------- The *-server-client would have its config files be configured as 'client-only' but allows for drop-in config settings into their respective drop-in include directory. Might even have a dpkg-[p]reconfigure script for additional info for being in server mode (such as interface/subnet). Interaction between *-client-only/*-server-client packages ---------------------------------------------------------- Of course, this *-server-client package class would NOT be deleting any config files that it did NOT install, thus enabling customization to be left behind and untouch. We could even make the *-client-only be dominate and 'blow-away' settings (ok, not that drastic, just simply rename away with *.dpkg filetype) on these drop-in config files. And APT 'Conflicts:' shall not be used by any *-server-client package. Interaction between *-server-client and systemd-timesyncd --------------------------------------------------------- Well, systemd-timesyncd is only good for client-side. We ought to be able to support this new 'Conflicts: *-client-only' still. No need to remove systemd-timesyncd if one of the *-server-client got installed. Admin would just need to be smart about how to set both package classes together. Summary ------- Yeah, it's a bit heady. Not sure why we went down this 'Conflicts:' route for time-daemon packages. I can see the need to meet ease of use for the desktop community, but certinaly not at a heavy cost toward the server community.