Sorry and to add one more thing, the TZ string takes precedence over the system wide /etc/localtime. This means that if you log into a machine in another timezone you can get answers in your own localtime by setting TZ in your environment. It also means that on the command line you can see what time it is anywhere if you know the TZ, eg:
<br><br>TZ=EST date<br><br><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 10/9/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Nick Rout</b> <<a href="mailto:nick.rout@gmail.com">nick.rout@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
The TZ string only points the system to a different compiled timezone file anyway.<br><br>If you don't want to depend on other people preparing updated packages, I suggest you explore linuxfromscratch. Its the only way to get exactly what YOU want.
<br><br>The situation where many distros didn't have an update to the appropriate packages available until close to or after the cutoff time is unfortunate, but I suggest you complain to the distro's developers.<div>
<span class="e" id="q_11583b3a6859d9d9_1"><br>
<br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 10/9/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Stephen Worthington</b> <<a href="mailto:stephen_agent@jsw.gen.nz" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">stephen_agent@jsw.gen.nz
</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
On Tue, 9 Oct 2007 13:21:23 +1300 (NZDT), you wrote:<br><br>><br>>On Sat, October 6, 2007 1:46 pm, Stephen Worthington wrote:<br>>> On Sat, 6 Oct 2007 12:33:58 +1300, you wrote:<br>>><br>>>>The mythtv machine is running ubuntu Feisty, and as mentioned in other
<br>>>> posts<br>>>>(I also found some posts online) php has updated timezone information,<br>>>>however it hasn't been released as a package for ubuntu.. I found the<br>>>> source
<br>
>>>for the updates but havent had a chance to apply them.. And now that its<br>>>>Saturday im assuming all my problems will disappear tonight anyway..<br>>>><br>>>>Ill just hope they do release an updated php package by the end of the
<br>>>>daylight savings time..<br>>>><br>>>>Thanks everyone for your help.. Im totally amazed at how many hassles ive<br>>>>had due to daylight savings changes.. Most peoples PC's were patched,
<br>>>>however next to no-ones phones, pda's, various software packages etc all<br>>>> had<br>>>>problems..<br>>>><br>>>>Next time they change daylight savings time I say we all just agree to
<br>>>> start<br>>>>work an hour earlier etc.. Why do we feel the need to change the numbers<br>>>> we<br>>>>refer to on watches etc.. They are an arbitrary measurement of time<br>>>>passed...
<br>>>><br>>>>Kyle Carter<br>>><br>>> I do not see why we have to install patches to change daylight saving.<br>>> It should be like it was on my Cisco router - just a change to the<br>
>> daylight saving setting, a simple adjustment of the numbers. Sure,<br>>> the Windows users probably need Microsoft to hand feed them a patch,<br>>> but even there, there should be the option to just change some
<br>>> settings. And surely in the Linux world, having to download a patch<br>>> is a bit extreme. I was very surprised to find that there was not a<br>>> simple setting in etc to change.<br>><br>>Then you show a fundamental misunderstanding of how time is calculated on
<br>>a linux machine.<br><br>The last time I delved into timezone settings, it was a TZ variable<br>that controlled it. That was easy to understand. I eventually<br>figured out how it is now, but even with Google help it was not
<br>straightforward.<br><br>>The local time is calculated by converting UTC (GMT) via the settings in<br>>/etc/localtime, (or if it exists in the users environment, the variable<br>>$TZ). /etc/localtime is either a link to or a copy of, one of the files in
<br>>/usr/share/zoneinfo, specifically in NZ the correct file is<br>>/usr/share/zoneinfo/Pacific/Auckland.<br><br>A copy in my case, so there was no helpful link to follow to find the<br>zoneinfo files.<br><br>>These timezone files are compiled, I am not sure why but I asume that it
<br>>is because time calculations are so common and so fundamental that they<br>>have to be done super quickly.<br>><br>>So yes, there is a simple file to update, but you then have to compile it..<br>>The compile tool is called zic (zone info compiler?) and is very simple to
<br>>run.<br><br>No, there was not a simple file to update at all, as my distribution<br>seems to only have the compiled zone files. It does have zic, but no<br>documentation that would lead me to that name from among the many
<br>executables.<br><br>>So you have two options - change the source file for the timezone you use<br>>and then use zic to compile it, or download a new set of compiled zoneinfo<br>>files through your package manager. The latter is probably a better option
<br>>as I understand that NZ is not the only timezone with recent changes.<br>><br>>Nick.<br><br>In the end, I waited for the official package update. I could have<br>downloaded the source files, once I had worked out what and where they
<br>were. But since the package update was promised for a few days later<br>I did not bother. But I do not like to be dependent on someone out<br>there preparing packages in a timely manner. I like to be able to do<br>
it myself. And all of this seems overkill compared to a TZ string,<br>which used to work fine for me. I am sure there were reasons for<br>doing all of this, but the big problem I had was the usual one with<br>Linux - the detailed documentation is there, once you find it, but the
<br>things that get you to finding it are usually either completely<br>missing or sadly lacking. I should be able to just look up the master<br>help system and find a pointer to the timezone settings immediately.<br><br>
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