(OLD) (ARCHIVED) Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[rcrsn51]

PeasyClock manages your system clock - date, time and zone.

Debian likes to run in UTC mode - it synchronizes its clock with Greenwich, England. Check the file /etc/adjtime to see the current mode. Use the Mode button for quick access to this file.

If you want to stick with UTC, here is the setup.

1. Google "current time greenwich england"

2. Run PeasyClock.

3. The initial time zone is Etc/UTC. Set your own time zone. Refresh.

4. Set your current local date and time. Note: Sometimes, the tray clock won't sync up until the next reboot.

Important: Stretch auto-updates the BIOS clock at the end of a session, so it's essential that you have the zone and local time set correctly in PeasyClock BEFORE you quit. You do NOT need to run "Update hardware clock".

5. Reboot. Open the BIOS and check the hardware clock. It should be set to Greenwich time!

6. The Stretch tray clock will show your local time. It takes the hardware UTC time and adjusts it using your time zone.

Note to Puppy users: Puppy works in LOCAL mode by default (you can switch it to UTC) and stores the setting in /etc/clock. It does NOT auto-update the BIOS clock at shutdown. But if the clock already has the correct time for your mode, you do NOT need to change it. See below.

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If you are sharing your machine with Windows or Puppy, local time is the preferred choice. Other OS's don't know that the clock is set to Greenwich time!

1. In /etc/adjtime, change UTC to LOCAL.

2. Set your own time zone. Refresh.

3. Set your date and time. See the Important note above.

4. Reboot. Open the BIOS and check the clock. It should now be your own local time.

5. The Stretch tray clock will show your local time and PeasyClock will show the correct zone.

Read here for more examples.

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Updates: Version 1.4 has several additions.

1. The Time Zone list now contains the default zone Etc/UTC.

2. The BIOS button displays the actual current value of the hardware clock regardless of your mode. So you don't need to boot into the BIOS to check it.

3. The Now button shows you the current time at any location selected from the Time Zone list. (You don't need to set the zone first.)

4. You can optionally set the date/time from an NTP server. On a Puppy system, you would then update the hardware clock in local mode.

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PeasyClock is now in Fred's repo. It installs in the System menu.
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[zagreb999]

REGARDS

TIME, ZONE, CLOCK

BETTER, THE BEST IS
tzclock_3.0.6-1_i386.deb

IT WORKS PERFECTLY

[rcrsn51]

[fredx181]

[rcrsn51]

Thanks. I just now posted a new version (still 1.0) with online help.

It took a while to figure this out. It looks like the hwclock tool automatically updates /etc/adjtime depending on which mode you pick to set the hardware clock.

I originally started this project for Puppy, which scatters date/time/zone functions over several applets.

[fredx181]

Hi Bill, OK, replaced older peasyclock with your new version in repos.

Tested again now (fresh Stretch-Live install) with localtime setup, but didn't edit /etc/adjtime (so kept as UTC) and all worked as expected after configuring peasyclock ,(after reboot it was changed to LOCAL in /etc/adjtime)
So it seems to me that this, what you wrote, is not needed ?

[rcrsn51]

If your hardware clock currently has the correct local time and you don't want to update it with PeasyClock, you would need to manually change /etc/adjtime. (I think).

Otherwise, Stretch would assume that the hardware clock time was actually UTC and it would display your local time incorrectly.

[fredx181]

Ok, did manually change to LOCAL in /etc/adjtime now. Then, If I change timezone in peasyclock and do refresh, the time changes to one hour later, if I keep it like that, and reboot, my hardware clock is wrong set, so changing the time in peasyclock to the correct (local) time is absolutely necessary anyway, I think, no matter if I edited /etc/adjtime or not.
But perhaps I misunderstood what you mean.

Fred

[rcrsn51]

This gets confusing, doesn't it? I guess that's why Debian likes to leave the hardware clock as UTC and handle all changes through the time zone selection.

Here is what I tried.

1. I set the BIOS clock to my own local time, as if it were a Windows machine.

2. I boot a clean install of Stretch.

3. I install PeasyClock.

4. The initial, default timezone is Etc/UTC and the tray clock has my correct local time. That's because Stretch assumes that I am currently in Greenwich and it doesn't need to adjust the time.

5. I change the time zone to Canada/Eastern and refresh. The time is now wrong by 4 hours (5 time zones minus daylight savings).

6. I set the time correctly JUST for the purposes of this session.

7. I do NOT update the hardware clock, because I know that it contains my correct local time.

8. I manually update /etc/adjtime to LOCAL.

9. I reboot. The tray clock time is correct. Because I am in local mode, Stretch doesn't need to adjust it for the time zone.

10. When I run the "date" command, it shows my correct time and the correct EDT time zone.

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In your example, it sounds like the BIOS clock was previous set to Greenwich, so your time zone change to Holland put the local time one hour off.

In that case, you would definitely need to update the hardware clock to Holland time.

[Edit] Apparently, if you are in LOCAL mode and make a time zone change, Stretch will sometimes automatically adjust the BIOS clock for you to the new zone. Which would mess up your Windows time.

Now I am really confused.

[fredx181]

[dancytron]

FWIW, I changed me etc/adjtime to local, set my timezone (U.S. Central), then installed ntp.

On reboot, everything was correct and it coexisted with Windows XP without an issue.

Maybe it is the order that you do things that matters (i.e. set hardware clock to correct value last).

My notes:

[rcrsn51]

Thanks. Could you try the following?

1. Imagine you fly to LA.
2. You open your laptop and set the new time zone.
3. Does ntp automatically fix the local time?
4. Check the BIOS. Has its clock changed?
5. Run XP. What does it know? The new time? The new zone?
6. If you need to update the XP time and zone, that should also change the BIOS. How does that affect your Stretch setup?

[dancytron]

Do you want me to use your application or the default "setup timezone?"

[rcrsn51]

It shouldn't matter. All the timezone setup does (I think) is make a link from /etc/localtime into /usr/share/zoneinfo.

[AndresC2]

Hi All

this work for me.

in debian stretch script I add.

#Setup Timezone

echo "America/Caracas" > /etc/timezone

build debian stretch iso.

and now not change my bios time anymore.