That’s because you know cron. If you knew timers equally as well they would be easier. And they let you handle the edge cases (retry, randomness, tracking, logs etc) without the need for a custom script.
Once you factor in the production edge cases I think timers are clearly easier. You get all of it for free.
I think if you know cron from the start it can be easier, but it gets really annoying really fast.
Compare:
0 0 * * * /usr/bin/flock -n /tmp/myjob.lock bash -c 'sleep $((RANDOM % 3600)) && /usr/local/bin/myjob.sh'
To:
[Timer]
OnCalendar=daily
RandomizedDelaySec=1h
That and things like systemd preventing overlapped delays, handing what to do if the system was down during the last cycle, built in logging and event tracking. Seeing successful vs non successful runs etc.
Once you add in those production requirements cron gets annoying fast and timers are easy.
The main functional difference between systemd and others is that systemd will just work. Others will require you hand tune and hand tinker with a non-mainstream Linux distro.
If your hobby is init systems by all means mess around though.
I personally quite like systemd. Unit files are clean, timers services and sockets are easy to manage etc.
Honestly it’s a non-problem. Best advice is to use what is best supported. Don’t let the extremely fringe (but loud) tiny group of systemd haters throw you off.
Fedora with Niri on laptop / desktop.
Alma Linux on servers.
Level 4 self driving cars.
Out of curiosity what mandatory features would you consider missing?
Yah but community centric GPL to no copyright is sort of the goal for the recent slop rewrites.
If there is no copyright on the slop output code based on GPL code that’s a win for the corps.
I think you’re mixing things up here. Mac’s are actually VERY performant, both objectively and relative to the on board ram.
There are many critiques that can be made of macOS. But saying it runs inefficiently is not one of them.
Maybe in 2019. In 2026 8Gb of ram alone costs $150
Can’t tell if cult member or troll. Either way the comment is of 0 value.
The same applies to this guy. His work is quite impressive, but his antisocial tendencies got him booted from working in the kernel. And now he’s gone down this path.
Hopefully things level out before we see a templeOS level mental health crisis situation.
But I responded to a comment cursing out systemd on a post about system V being dropped?
The comparison is as made because the comment brought up systemd on a post about system V.
Yah! Screw them 20 line unit files. We roll with 500 line bash scripts.
/sarcasm
I mean yah? That’s obviously true. That’s why I said it was close to actual anti semitism. Not bona fide antisemitism.
This is weirdly close to actual anti semitism. Israel is a genocidal state, reasonable people can agree, but there being a secret plan to control the world reaks of something more dog whistle-ish.
Small clarification. Apple Pay is not really paying with your phone bill. I think you can but most users just have their credit card or debit card linked.
You need to reach out to the scientists to let them know! You could save lives with your insight!
What are you talking about? Linux has virtually no backwards compatibility at all. Maybe one or two years max. The kernel is fine. The weak point is glibc.
You literally need to recompile applications constantly to stay compatible with glibc. Otherwise they just don’t work.
The good news is that distros are constantly providing freshly compiled versions of open source applications.
The bad news is that actual binary backwards compatibility is non existent. Try running a binary compiled in 2005 on modern Linux. You’ll just get a ton of glibc errors.
Windows lets you run applications compiled in 1995 on modern desktops.
Linux is great and it’s what I use. But we can’t claim backwards compatibility as a strength. Maybe a binary compiled today with musl might run in 2036 but musl targeting is quite rare.
It’s a major hacker community centric event. The biggest in Europe. It could be that the community just likes it. 🤷♀️
I can see how for some people cron is more straightforward to learn, at least till you need to handle logging, checking for cron results, handling when the triggered event can’t happen that instance, ensuring only one instance of the triggered thing happens at once, adding time jitter, etc.
Then timers are way simpler. Timers let you create robust timed events for free. With cron you need to do all that yourself.