[mythtvnz] Listings 1hour out of whack

[Stephen Worthington]

On Tue, 9 Oct 2007 13:21:23 +1300 (NZDT), you wrote:

>
>On Sat, October 6, 2007 1:46 pm, Stephen Worthington wrote:
>> On Sat, 6 Oct 2007 12:33:58 +1300, you wrote:
>>
>>>The mythtv machine is running ubuntu Feisty, and as mentioned in other
>>> posts
>>>(I also found some posts online) php has updated timezone information,
>>>however it hasn't been released as a package for ubuntu.. I found the
>>> source
>>>for the updates but havent had a chance to apply them.. And now that its
>>>Saturday im assuming all my problems will disappear tonight anyway..
>>>
>>>Ill just hope they do release an updated php package by the end of the
>>>daylight savings time..
>>>
>>>Thanks everyone for your help.. Im totally amazed at how many hassles ive
>>>had due to daylight savings changes.. Most peoples PC's were patched,
>>>however next to no-ones phones, pda's, various software packages etc all
>>> had
>>>problems..
>>>
>>>Next time they change daylight savings time I say we all just agree to
>>> start
>>>work an hour earlier etc.. Why do we feel the need to change the numbers
>>> we
>>>refer to on watches etc.. They are an arbitrary measurement of time
>>>passed...
>>>
>>>Kyle Carter
>>
>> I do not see why we have to install patches to change daylight saving.
>> It should be like it was on my Cisco router - just a change to the
>> daylight saving setting, a simple adjustment of the numbers.  Sure,
>> the Windows users probably need Microsoft to hand feed them a patch,
>> but even there, there should be the option to just change some
>> settings.  And surely in the Linux world, having to download a patch
>> is a bit extreme.  I was very surprised to find that there was not a
>> simple setting in etc to change.
>
>Then you show a fundamental misunderstanding of how time is calculated on
>a linux machine.

The last time I delved into timezone settings, it was a TZ variable
that controlled it.  That was easy to understand.  I eventually
figured out how it is now, but even with Google help it was not
straightforward.

>The local time is calculated by converting UTC (GMT) via the settings in
>/etc/localtime, (or if it exists in the users environment, the variable
>$TZ). /etc/localtime is either a link to or a copy of, one of the files in
>/usr/share/zoneinfo, specifically in NZ the correct file is
>/usr/share/zoneinfo/Pacific/Auckland.

A copy in my case, so there was no helpful link to follow to find the
zoneinfo files.

>These timezone files are compiled, I am not sure why but I asume that it
>is because time calculations are so common and so fundamental that they
>have to be done super quickly.
>
>So yes, there is a simple file to update, but you then have to compile it..
>The compile tool is called zic (zone info compiler?) and is very simple to
>run.

No, there was not a simple file to update at all, as my distribution
seems to only have the compiled zone files.  It does have zic, but no
documentation that would lead me to that name from among the many
executables.

>So you have two options - change the source file for the timezone you use
>and then use zic to compile it, or download a new set of compiled zoneinfo
>files through your package manager. The latter is probably a better option
>as I understand that NZ is not the only timezone with recent changes.
>
>Nick.

In the end, I waited for the official package update.  I could have
downloaded the source files, once I had worked out what and where they
were.  But since the package update was promised for a few days later
I did not bother.  But I do not like to be dependent on someone out
there preparing packages in a timely manner.  I like to be able to do
it myself.  And all of this seems overkill compared to a TZ string,
which used to work fine for me.  I am sure there were reasons for
doing all of this, but the big problem I had was the usual one with
Linux - the detailed documentation is there, once you find it, but the
things that get you to finding it are usually either completely
missing or sadly lacking.  I should be able to just look up the master
help system and find a pointer to the timezone settings immediately.