[SOLVED]Weird issue about system time

[anayonkars]

Hi All,

This is my first post, so please bear with me if I make any mistakes.

I've been using Linux Mint since Mint 10 days and after being fed up with reinstalling system every 6-8 months, recently, I switched to Linux Mint Debian Edition. And then the issue began.

The moment I configure system time using time-admin and it simply started modifying BIOS time. Let's take an example:

My timezone is GMT +5:30, and lets assume at my location, actual time is 9:00. So, I set time as 9:00 in BIOS settings, and when I boot in LMDE, I get system time as 14:30 (i.e. 9:00 + 5:30). Further, my timezone is still GMT +5:30.

So, I modified time in LMDE, to 9:00 and guess what? My BIOS time is now 3:30 (i.e. 9:00 - 5:30). Which means, my system time and BIOS time will always differ by 5:30. This is simply because I declared that my timezone is GMT +5:30.

I've used various distros (Debian, Ubuntu, and 3 versions of Mint) but I never faced this issue.

Since modification done in LMDE is modifying BIOS time, my other OS is also suffering from it. That is, I change time in LMDE, which changes BIOS time to incorrect value and other OS like Windows 7 picks that wrong time as it is.

All suggestions/help is appreciated.

Thanks.

Regards,
Anayonkar Shivalkar

[grizzler]

This is probably because the OS assumes your system clock is on UTC. Take a look at the file /etc/default/rcS and make sure the UTC setting corresponds with what you use (UTC=no if you don't want your computer's internal clock to be on UTC, i.e. if your BIOS clock should not be five and a half hours behind your local time).

[Darcy]

Anayonkar: Thanks for asking this question.

Grizzler: Thanks for the solution, it worked for me!

[anayonkars]

Thanks grizzler. It worked.

By the way, it is strange that LMDE does not have UTC configuration option in time-admin UI. Also, it didn't even asked me about UTC during installation. It seems that LMDE by default took UTC (which is not good).

I hope this issue won't be there in future releases.

Thanks for the help again.

[grizzler]

Setting the internal clock to UTC actually is the right way. The real problem here is Microsoft. It didn't follow what the real operating systems did when it designed Windows. The Ubuntu designers thought it best to mimic that behaviour to make dual booting with Windows easier. Debian isn't likely to do that.

[twa]

Hi,
I have solved installing from synaptic : ntp
cheers

[anayonkars]

Setting the internal clock to UTC actually is the right way. The real problem here is Microsoft.

I don't think so. Initially, my clock setting was UTC and the moment I set correct time in LMDE, it used to set wrong time in BIOS - which is unacceptable.
I'm not sure about new Debian systems, but I used Debian Etch (i.e. version 4) for more than 2 years and never had this issue. Even I did not face this issue in Mint 10,11,12 etc.

In my opinion, no matter what I do in OS, BIOS time should be modified only via BIOS. If I make time changes at OS level, it should reflect only in OS and not in BIOS. I don't know how Microsoft handles this issue, but at least it sets same time everywhere (in OS and BIOS).

As already mentioned, I faced this issue for the first time in LMDE itself. I never faced this issue before (of course, I never set my clock to UTC before, but at least other distros provided an option whereas LMDE by default set the UTC option to true).

Anyways, now the issue is resolved, and since I'm using rolling distro, I don't have to reinstall it

[AlbertP]

Microsoft always sets local time in BIOS. Fedora however asks you what to do during installation (single-boot has UTC default, dual-boot local time as default).
LMDE apparently sets UTC by default as there are more people complaining about this. I think it would be good to have either UTC off to avoid problems with Windows/Ubuntu or offer people a choice like Fedora does.