[systemd-devel] [PATCH] timedated: add configure option to set name of controlled NTP service

[Miroslav Lichvar]

On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 09:08:47AM -0700, Marcel Holtmann wrote:
> ConnMan is a single daemon solution doing NTP, DHCP and DNS all in
> one place. Any sort of callouts are costing time. And that is time
> that has a visible user impact. There is nothing that justifies to
> have a bit more nanosecond accuracy of synchronized time than making
> the user wait for extra milliseconds to get their network connection
> and time.

You need the first clock update to happen milliseconds after the
network is up? Seriously? I agree that's not possible with chronyd or
ntpd even if they were listening to networkd, but I don't think it's a
requirement on any desktop system.

> You might realize that a theme shows up here. If you are building a
> server, then by all means install ntpd or Chrony and configure it.
> You are the admin, you know what you are doing. If you do not know
> what are doing or do not care, then keep it simple.

I'm not convinced. I think uninformed users should be using the best
tool for the typical use case they have at hand.

Trading falseticker detection, stable clock control with intermittent
connections, ability to drift through when network is congested,
ability to deal with broken clocks (as in some virtual machines) and
monotonic time just for a super fast update seems like a bad choice to
me.

I'm sure timesyncd will be significantly improved over time, but
currently I'd not describe it as "more than appropriate for most
installations".

-- 
Miroslav Lichvar