[ntp:questions] Attn Linux distributors - pse include PPS

Rob nomail at example.com
Tue Apr 29 14:35:01 UTC 2014


David Taylor <david-taylor at blueyonder.co.uk.invalid> wrote:
> On 29/04/2014 14:40, Paul wrote:
> []
>> Sure or you just recognize that only one system in a million needs refclock
>> support and assume anyone running a refclock needs to be smart enough to
>> build ntpd with the requisite driver.
>
> However, many of my users who use PPS or other ref-clocks run Windows, 
> and they do not have either the required tools or skills to recompile. 
> The compiler alone is a 1 GB download.
>
> These days a slightly larger executable including the ref-clocks is a 
> very small inconvenience compared to having to rebuild.  Another issue 
> is the time taken to rebuild - you are looking at nearly an hour on the 
> Raspberry Pi, for example.

But with a modular approach you would not need to rebuild to add
a standard refclock, that would just be the installation of another
package containing the precompiled refclock or refclock bundle.

That is no different from having a program like Perl as a base, and
a lot of packages containing Perl modules for specific tasks.

The advantage would be that one can actually ADD an own refclock
without having to go through long and painful discussions with
package maintainers.

Or in the case discussed in this thread, one could compile a single
refclock that was omitted due to distributor oversight, and keep
the remainder of ntpd standard and candidate for automatic updates.

Even when the whole thing (ntpd and refclocks) would be distributed
in a single package, it would be possible to add new refclocks to
that.



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