Hi

I have a query about how I can best synchronise Kworldclock with my system.

Living in the UK, I have my system configured to BST (British Summer
Time). However, I am suspecting that this is not accurate with the time
that the BIOS (or system) time is at, because the west coast of Canada
is currently showing as -7 hours rather than the -8 that I am convinced
it should be.

How can I configure the system time, so that the time zones are
consistently 8 hours apart no matter what season the two countries are in?

TIA

Andy

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andy wrote:
> Hi
>
> I have a query about how I can best synchronise Kworldclock with my system.
>
> Living in the UK, I have my system configured to BST (British Summer
> Time). However, I am suspecting that this is not accurate with the time
> that the BIOS (or system) time is at, because the west coast of Canada
> is currently showing as -7 hours rather than the -8 that I am convinced
> it should be.
>
> How can I configure the system time, so that the time zones are
> consistently 8 hours apart no matter what season the two countries are in?
>
> TIA
>
> Andy
>

Hi, Andy,

I don't think that's how it works;(

Time zones are counted from the Prime Meridian, the 0 longitude line
which runs through Greenwich (England).

The zero point is always the same, and is roughly equivalent to saying
UTC (see UTC at Wikipedia for details). But the time zones (both yours,
BST, and Canada's west coast) may (or may not) observe daylight savings
time adjustments. If daylight savings is in effect, the differential is
-7, otherwise it's -8.

I believe the "always 8 difference" you want would happen when you
compare Canada's west coast to your BST time (with the caveat that they
may not start/stop on the same date, but in general when both are, or
are not, in effect, this would be true).

With respect to BIOS time, you may set it to match local time (when
working with MSWin OS's) or you can set it to UTC (if you only use Linux
or some other UNIX derivative). You must tell the Linux system, during
installation, which way you went, so it knows how to use the BIOS date.
You can probably change this selection, but I'm not aware of how.

You should consider installing and using the ntp package (Network Time
Protocol, NTP) to get accurate time set on your system by querying a
time server.

--
Bob McGowan

On August 15, 2007 06:35:15 pm Bob McGowan wrote:
> You must tell the Linux system, during
> installation, which way you went, so it knows how to use the BIOS date.
> You can probably change this selection, but I'm not aware of how.

The Etch installer no longer asks or at least did not on the install that I
did and to change it so it uses local time you edit the /etc/default/rcS file
and change to UTC=no.

Stephen

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