Ingo Schwarze wrote:
quoted text
> Kevin Kadow wrote on Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 04:40:13PM -0600:
> 
>> and also like his suggestion to check 'apm'  and not launch 
>> housekeeping tasks when solely on battery power.
> 
> I fear that's not an option.  The apm(8) utility uses the apm(4) 
> device which is limited to i386, AMD64, Zaurus and MacPPC.

Ok.  Architecture dependent tools should probably not be in the
maintenance scripts.  I proposed it under the mistaken premise that apm,
being in base, was on all architectures not just the ones on my desk.

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> I'm neither excited about any of the solutions proposed in this 
> thread - perhaps except that nick@'s disknice looks attractive, but i
>  have no idea whether and how that could be done - nor am i happy
> with the current situation, so i consider tedu@'s question
> unanswered.

A stronger note for non-server systems in the post-install checklist,
afterboot(8),  would be one option.  There are some code examples there
so a one-liner with 'find' and 'at' could be suggested for use in
rc.local or wherever else appropriate for desktop or laptop users.

http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=afterboot

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> I'm not even sure there is a good solution at all: Jan Stary and 
> Jonathan Thornburg have presented strong arguments indicating that 
> "run it manually at the time you want it" might be the best answer.

I use that method, but that may be a vote against the method. ;)

If the weekly script is launched using 'at', then it will run at the
first opportunity.

KK's suggestion of making the weekly script modular so that specific
routines can be rerun individually is useful in a lot of situations.

/Lars