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Re: Setting system time on startup



On Fri, Jun 07, 2002 at 11:51:16AM +0800, Patrick Hsieh wrote:
| Hello Pietro Cagnoni <pcagnoni@mclink.net>,
| 
| What is the advantage to keep the clock on GMT?

Suppose the machine moves and is now in a new timezone.  Also suppose
you're running a legacy OS (eg MS-DOS or MS-Windows) and you now want
the clock to show the correct local time.  Here's the steps to correct
it :
    1)  enter the BIOS config and reset the clock to the new local time
    2)  boot the OS and reset the timezone to the new local timezone

Now consider the same scenario, except that a modern (eg Debian) OS is
on the machine.  Here are the steps to show the correct local time :
    1)  tell the system what the new local time zone is (run 'tzconfig')

Storing a well-defined and "constant" value (UTC, aka GMT) is more
flexible than storing an ever changing value.  (give me a little
leeway here, time is always changing, but "GMT" is constant whereas
"EST", "EDT", "CST", "CDT" (yes I moved a while ago then DST kicked
in, so this desktop machine has been through 4 timezones) is ever
changing)

-D

-- 

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge,
but he who hates correction is stupid.
        Proverbs 12:1
 
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