install changes system clock

rayzorblayde · 2004-01-12 03:38:06

how come when i install arch, and then boot into windows later, my system clock is changed to like 8 hours ago. has this happened to anyone before?

andy · 2004-01-12 10:48:51

Let me guess, you live on the West coast ?! ;-) which is about 8 hours behind GMT.

You probably told the installer that your local clock is GMT whereas it is localtime, or vice versa. Or at least the configuration is in mismatch - weather you did it actively or not.
Arch does set the CMOS clock upon shutdown/reboot. It also reads it upon boot - so if the configuration is wrong, your clock will be wrong.

Do you actively know how you want your CMOS clock ? Then edit /etc/rc.conf accordingly, reboot and set it in the BIOS.

If you don't know what I'm talking about edit /etc/rc.conf so that the clock is in localtime and set the clock in Windows.

Also, search this forum for "timezone"

rayzorblayde · 2004-01-12 14:26:19

actually i live in the east coast (-5 hrs gmt). i will check what my rc.conf file says after my classes today and post it. i didn't change any of the time stuff from the defaults because they seemed to be ok.

rayzorblayde · 2004-01-12 19:23:11

ok, well, it's set to localtime, but my timezone is set to canada/pacific, so i will change that. one good thing though is now that it's already installed, it doesn't seem to change the time in the bios when i load arch. everything should be ok now. i'll just change that pacific to whatever the eastern equivilent is.... which seems to be /usr/share/zoneinfo. thanks for everything.

rayzorblayde · 2004-01-13 02:50:10

ok, scratch the working ok part. i just realized, it's not 8 hours behind, its 8 hours ahead! it is 950pm right now on monday and my windows clock says that it is 550am on tuesday. my rc.conf file looks like:

TIMEZONE=Eastern
HARDWARECLOCK="localtime"

should i change localtime to utc?

andy · 2004-01-13 13:57:00

And what time is it really ?

What I would do now : decide for yourself if you want the CMOS clock in localtime or not. Your decision will probably depend on your Windows system. If you have WIndows98 (first edition) or earlier, you have no choice: CMOS should be localtime. If you have Win98SE or later then carefully check in your Windows system how you set it up. It *usually* wants it in localtime, but it can handle UTC, therefore check your configuration.

Now, you know how you want your CMOS/BIOS clock to be.

Now boot into Arch and edit /etc/rc.conf accordingly. Note, however that your TIMEZONE is incorrect. You probably want something like

TIMEZONE=America/New_York
TIMEZONE=EST

Note, that the first automatically switches between daylight savings time, whereas the second does not necessarily. The value you give to TIMEZONE has to actually exist as a file in /usr/share/zoneinfo/ (I.e. no matter weather you live in Boston, D.C., Miami, Atlanta, Philladelphia you always choose America/New_York) !

Now that you have edited /etc/rc.conf correctly, I would boot into the BIOS and set the CMOS clock there correctly.

EDIT: links to 2 previous threads about this topic :
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=2198
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=830

kakabaratruskia · 2004-01-13 16:51:34

you could download ntp, and put:
ntpdate ntp.youreserver.net
in rc.local.

andy · 2004-01-13 18:41:28

Yes, he could. But I first really suggest to clean up the "mess" :-) as I described. Especially, the setting of the clock in the BIOS. That way you really know what the BIOS clock is set to !

_JeffG_ · 2004-01-14 05:10:39

I have experienced this each and every time I install Arch. I make sure the time zone and such are correct before the end of the install and I boot for the first time. But I have seen this.

Jeff

rayzorblayde · 2004-01-20 16:26:31

andy wrote:

Yes, he could. But I first really suggest to clean up the "mess" :-) as I described. Especially, the setting of the clock in the BIOS. That way you really know what the BIOS clock is set to !

ok, i did what you said, but now my clock is showing 5 hours behind, which seems to fit the -500 for EST, but i don't want it to be 5 hours behind, because it's 5 behind EST, not 000, and i don't live in Hawaii! . how do i tell it to not change the bios clock? i'm looking at the date command, but im' not seeing what i need to do.

thanks

rayzorblayde · 2004-01-20 16:42:15

well, the ntpdate thing that kakabaratruskia suggested worked, but i'd still like to know what else i could have done.

thanks

haohmaru · 2005-01-30 19:58:30

I seem do have kind of the same problem. Every time I install Arch (it's been three times so far) my system (hardware) clock suddenly is set +1 hour. I figure it mismatches the daylight saving hour, calculated from the timezone info (Europe/Stockholm). It's annoying to have to set the time everytime I try out a new distro.

Arch Linux

#1 2004-01-12 03:38:06

install changes system clock

#2 2004-01-12 10:48:51

Re: install changes system clock

#3 2004-01-12 14:26:19

Re: install changes system clock

#4 2004-01-12 19:23:11

Re: install changes system clock

#5 2004-01-13 02:50:10

Re: install changes system clock

#6 2004-01-13 13:57:00

Re: install changes system clock

#7 2004-01-13 16:51:34

Re: install changes system clock

#8 2004-01-13 18:41:28

Re: install changes system clock

#9 2004-01-14 05:10:39

Re: install changes system clock

#10 2004-01-20 16:26:31

Re: install changes system clock

#11 2004-01-20 16:42:15

Re: install changes system clock

#12 2005-01-30 19:58:30

Re: install changes system clock

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