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New Daylight Savings Time [solved]


banjo
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Greetings,

 

I did a search of the forum on the new Daylight Savings time expecting a bunch of topics. I was surprised to find nothing definitive on the issue. How are people dealing with this silliness? Are people just setting the clock manually?

 

Sorry if this question has already been answered; I couldn't find it.

 

Thanks,

Banjo

(_)=='=~

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Well, this only effects those of us that are in the good ol' states, and I think most of us are just going to do it manually. Although if you set up NTP to sync your clocks, you wouldn't have to worry about it at all.

 

I was surprised how few people knew about this change in DST. Some were aware of the change but didn't have any clue when DST was to take effect (2am March 11).

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There was a bit of a ramble on MUB here, and a couple of articles on Slashdot here and here.

 

Seems like for single machines you change your time zone and it should be ok. For large networks of machines where patches / manual changes aren't synchronized between all the clients and servers, then there could be quite a few people getting confused about their appointments and reminders, at least for a few weeks. Or longer, if they have to change their timezone and then change it back.

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Thanks for the pointer. I will go look at NTP. If it is a pain to do I will just set the clock manually.

 

I tend to forget about this stuff because even my wristwatch synchs up with WWVB every night. :lol2:

 

I have a script that synchs the clock manually with a CLI, so maybe I will try that as well.

 

Thanks,

Banjo

(_)=='=~

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Would NTP solve the problem? According to the Wikipedia, "NTP uses Marzullo's algorithm with the UTC time scale". NTP therefore sounds like it's great for making sure your clock is synchronized but doesn't sound like it will know anything about time zones or daylight saving. Remember, UTC doesn't change at the weekend.

 

Setting your clock manually sounds interesting too, does that mean you'll reset what your computer thinks is UTC? Say for example you're in time zone -8, so in Winter you're at UTC-8. Come next week are you going to tell your computer that it's still Winter, you're still in zone -8 but UTC has moved on one hour from what it really is? Or tell your computer that you're now in time zone -7 (but still Winter) and UTC hasn't changed...?

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If your using a recent version of Mandriva Linux (or most Linux distros) with updates, you should be set. You can check it with:

[greg@halfway ~]$ /usr/sbin/zdump -v /etc/localtime | grep 2007
/etc/localtime  Sun Mar 11 06:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 11 01:59:59 2007 EST isdst=0 gmtoff=-18000
/etc/localtime  Sun Mar 11 07:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 11 03:00:00 2007 EDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-14400
/etc/localtime  Sun Nov  4 05:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Nov  4 01:59:59 2007 EDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-14400
/etc/localtime  Sun Nov  4 06:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Nov  4 01:00:00 2007 EST isdst=0 gmtoff=-18000

if you see March and November, your ok. :)

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Setting your clock manually sounds interesting too, does that mean you'll reset what your computer thinks is UTC?
Obviously not. You change your computers calculation of your time zone from UTC-X to UTC-Y (or +, I guess, for some people). Technically speaking, this is what DST does - UTC doesn't change, just the calculation of time in your time zone. But as Greg2 has showed us, there is an update for this, so no one should worry too much - as long as they are up-to-date.

 

Come next week are you going to tell your computer that it's still Winter
last time I checked my computers clock did not keep track of seasons ;)
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...as Greg2 has showed us, there is an update for this, so no one should worry too much - as long as they are up-to-date.
Great, if only all systems were so enlightened!! :P So as long as all your work computers, and all the servers, and the computers of everyone you work with are all fully-updated linux systems, there can't be any problems! :thumbs:

 

last time I checked my computer's clock did not keep track of seasons ;)
Sure it does, as in Winter time/Summer time, non-DST/DST, normal time zone or normal time zone + 1 hour.

 

Obvoiusly I'm not saying there will be disaster and calamity, but I think there will be some fun and confusion - most of it, as you say, on your side of the ocean.

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last time I checked my computer's clock did not keep track of seasons ;)
Sure it does, as in Winter time/Summer time, non-DST/DST, normal time zone or normal time zone + 1 hour.
It is only we who perceive the "seasons" that are associated with non-DST and DST, our computers don't have a clue, nor do they care. They do not associate DST with a "season", they associate it with a date in a cycle. Don't apply human-only perception to your computer, it will confuse you ;)

 

Obvoiusly I'm not saying there will be disaster and calamity, but I think there will be some fun and confusion - most of it, as you say, on your side of the ocean.
About as much fun and confusion as there was in 2000.

 

Most systems can easily be patched/updated to fix the issue. Although I haven't researched the exact kernel version, I believe this change has been in most recent kernel versions and probably pushed out as updates on some older versions. It's nothing more than changing the date DST starts and ends, it's quite a simple operation, and I doubt it will do anything except pinpoint lazy administrators.

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We don't have DST in my country, but I just wanted to add another recommendation for NTP. I use it to sync all my boxes (and, therefore, my mobile devices too). Works really well I wouldn't dream of doing it manually.

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I have lived with DST most of my life.

I tried to open a bank account with all the day light I saved, but they just laughed at me.

Then I tried to keep it in a jar, to use in December when the days were really short. But there was no light in the jar.

I then thought about it and timed the hours of daylight with my clock set to DST and again with it set to th same time year round. The days were the same either way!

Other things I have learned:

It is just as hard to get up in the morning without a cappuccino.

Despite the TV shows coming on earlier, their content is just as pathetic.

Benjamin Franklin was intelligent. Except concerning time. With this, he was an idiot.

 

I guess I just don't get the deeper things in life! ;)

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well, the government is doing a study to see if this change saves any energy (based on the idea that more people use energy - light, etc. - in the evening than early in the morning), so I guess we'll find out if there's a point to it. Oh, and Franklin never earnestly suggested DST ;)

 

but I'm pretty sure this thread didn't start to discuss whether or not we like or agree with DST, so, perhaps that's a path best left in the last thread we had on it, since we pretty well killed it there.

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