Subject: ntp* missing from desktop tasks

From: Valentin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 05 Dec 2022 17:30:28 +0100

Source: tasksel
Version: 3.68+devuan4u1

Dear maintainers,

I noticed that my kde desktop environment, installed from the devuan installer 
via tasksel, had the option to "Set date and time automatically" was greyed 
out.

This is most likely due to the fact that on default debian desktop 
installations the ability to set time via ntp is provided by systemd. therefor 
it also affects some (or all) other desktop environments.

In order to have a fully functional desktop environment without systemd either 
task-desktop, task-kde-desktop or desktop-base should contain an ntp client.

As a workaround: manually install ntpd or ntpdate or...

Thanks for your work,
Valentin

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From: Mark Hindley <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2022 17:07:53 +0000

Valentin,

Thanks for this

> task-desktop, task-kde-desktop or desktop-base should contain an ntp client.

This seems reasonable. Maybe adding

 Recommends: time-daemon | ntpsec-ntpdate

to desktop-base is the best option. ntpd doesn't exist in ceres/daedalus and
ntpdate is only transitional.

Or maybe this should be kde-* only as I am not sure other desktops have a menu
item to set the time.

What do you think?

Mark

---

From: Valentin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2022 15:44:26 +0100

> > In order to have a fully functional desktop environment without systemd
> > either task-desktop, task-kde-desktop or desktop-base should contain an
> > ntp client.

I'm not sure about it. I think it would be nice to have a service that runs by 
default, and this suggestion would install ntpsec-ntpdate if no time-daemon 
was previously installed which needs to be run manually.

But on the other hand i'm not sure what to do instead...
I was looking around in standard debian and there systemd has
Recommends: systemd-timesyncd | time-daemon
 
> Or maybe this should be kde-* only as I am not sure other desktops have a
> menu item to set the time.

I think most desktop environments have it, I'm sure for KDE and Gnome do.
As the de facto standard nowadays is systemd-timesyncd the system-settings 
guis will work with it installed, either by en- or disabling the service or 
via its dbus interface. I'm not sure if they will work for any other ntp 
daemon and can't find any documentation about it....

Sorry for this inconclusive answer and thanks for your work,
Valentin

---

From: Mark Hindley <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2022 16:41:58 +0000

Valentine,

> was previously installed which needs to be run manually.

If there is a time-daemon installed, isn't running anything manually superfluous?

> I think most desktop environments have it, I'm sure for KDE and Gnome do.

I don't use either. I don't think xfce4 does and the lightweight onces like
openbox certainly doesn't.

Mark