[pkg-ntp-maintainers] Bug#514318: Bug#514318: lockfile can cause long startup delays, questionable benefit

[Peter Eisentraut]

martin f krafft wrote:
> So it seems that the root cause is ntpdate's inability to deal with
> broken DNS (separate bug report to be filed).

ntpdate is deprecated upstream, so it's unlikely that things like that 
will get fixed.

> At the time the boot finally completed, ntpdate and ntpd were both
> running, which makes me question the point of the lockfile. The
> initscript really ought not to hold up the whole boot sequence, even
> if ntpdate has a problem.

Why do you install ntpdate at all if you have ntpd installed?  That is 
normally not useful.  We are just trying to prevent these two from 
tripping over each other in legacy installations.  (That is not to say 
that your complaint is not valid; I'm just explaining our priorities.)