Anacron/Cron needed by default anymore?

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Tue, 12 Feb 2019 09:59:01 -0800, Bryan Quigley wrote:
>Based on a disco desktop current jobs:
>apport - clean all crash reports which are older than a week.
>apt-compat - says to prefer the systemd timers
>bsdmainutils - BSD mainutils calendar daily maintenance script
>cracklib-runtime - make a wordlist for stronger password checking
>dpkg - Backup the 7 last versions of dpkg databases containing user
>data. logrotate - skips if systemd is installed
>man-db - skips if systemd is installed
>mlocate - regenerates locate database
>passwd - backups passwd group shadow gshadow
>popularity-contest - sends package info
>ubuntu-advantage-tools - runs status and stores in a cache
>update-notifier-common - Try to rerun any package data downloads that
>failed at package install time.

FWIW

https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?searchon=contents&keywords=fstrim.timer&mode=exactfilename&suite=cosmic&arch=any
https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?searchon=contents&keywords=systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer&mode=exactfilename&suite=cosmic&arch=any

Neither for my Ubuntu, nor for my Arch Linux install I need much
timers.

I'm booted to Arch Linux now, but it should be similar for my Ubuntu
install:

  $ systemctl list-timers --all
  NEXT                         LEFT          LAST                         PASSED        UNIT                         ACTIVATES
  Wed 2019-02-13 00:00:00 CET  4h 40min left Tue 2019-02-12 00:00:51 CET  19h ago       logrotate.timer              logrotate.service
  Wed 2019-02-13 00:00:00 CET  4h 40min left Tue 2019-02-12 00:00:51 CET  19h ago       shadow.timer                 shadow.service
  Wed 2019-02-13 13:34:46 CET  18h left      Tue 2019-02-12 13:34:45 CET  5h 44min ago  systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service
  Mon 2019-02-18 00:00:00 CET  5 days left   Mon 2019-02-11 00:00:21 CET  1 day 19h ago fstrim.timer                 fstrim.service

  4 timers listed.

However, backwards compatibility might be useful for those who make
intensive use of individual cron jobs that aren't provided by packages.
Should they be forced to redo all the work they already have done?