On Jan 24 13:32:43, joshua stein wrote:
quoted text
> > Cron runs the weekly update script every Saturday at 3:30am.  If you
> > use a laptop or other desktop, your computer probably isn't on then.
> > So the locate and whatis databases never get updated unless you run it
> > by hand.
> > 
> > So somebody should figure out a way to handle this for desktop machines.

So do you mean laptops or desktops?  There's a difference;
namely, laptops run on batteries, and laptops move around.

On my desktop, which is usually down at the daily(8) time,
I just run 'sh /etc/daily ; shutdown -h -p now' at the end
of the day. On a Sunday, I also put /etc/weekly in there.

On my laptop, I do the same, _except_ sometimes shuting down
a laptop can mean I have 3 minutes of battery remaining, in
which case I obviously do not run daily.

Also, am I in my home network where there is nfs:/backup to mount?
Run the backups then (via daily.local. Otherwise, don't.

The other possibilities I thought of (rc.shutdown, @reboot,
other cron job) collide with one of the above. daily(8)
puts quite a load on (some of) my systems, and ultimately,
I want to decide myself, at the given moment, whether to
run it or not.

Do I need to shutdown quickly? Do I need to boot up quickly
to a not-much-loaded system? Do I walk away for a cup of
coffee-that-lasts-exactly-`time sh/etc/daily` anyway?
(That would be an example of daily(8) being run at a time
completely unrelated to booting, halting, or any other time.
How do I say that in cron?)

So I do it manualy, because having 'sh /etc/daily' somewhere
at the back of my head and typing the 13 chars is less of
a burden than introducing things into shutdown/boot/cron
in a way I know of.