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From: John McCue <jmccue@neutron.jmcunx.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Does Dimdows Know What Time It Is?
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2024 21:16:45 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> On 28 Sep 2024 23:21:43 GMT, vallor wrote:
> 
>> $ ls -l /etc/localtime
>> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 39 Jul 16 07:50 /etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Los_Angeles
> 
> This is a ?system default? timezone, which is not something that
> really makes sense on Linux.

Actually having that link makes sense on Linux and the BSDs.
It is used to default time display for users.
Like times from 'ls -l', 'date' ...

You can set TZ equal to whatever timezone in /usr/share/zoneinfo
you want.
For example:

% setenv TZ America/Denver
% date
Wed Oct  2 15:09:45 MDT 2024
% l x.txt 
-rw-------  1 jmccue  jmccue  116 Sep 22 14:48 x.txt
% setenv TZ America/New_York
% date
Wed Oct  2 17:10:32 EDT 2024
neutron % l x.txt
-rw-------  1 jmccue  jmccue  116 Sep 22 16:48 x.txt

If TZ is not set, the default is from /etc/localtime

Setting TZ is standard on many UN*X systems, though the zone
database may be a bit different.

But, a lot of Desktop Environments (KDE, GNOME) tend to
ignore this setting and force people to use their own
internal date set.  I blame that on Linux people having
no clue on how the TZ database really works.

<snip>

-- 
[t]csh(1) - "An elegant shell, for a more... civilized age."
                        - Paraphrasing Star Wars