BIOS time and Puppy time (ANSWERED)

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nooby
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#16 Post by nooby »

# cat /etc/adjtime
-0.010652 1315034785 0.000000
1315034785
LOCAL
# hwclock --show --utc
Sat 03 Sep 2011 02:40:48 PM CEST -0.856308 seconds
# hwclock --show --localtime
Sat 03 Sep 2011 12:41:24 PM CEST -0.548380 seconds
#

Looking at the clock on the desktop it says 12.42 so that is local time which I also chose when I install a new puppy.

so the norm or standard is to set harware to gmt? That explains why it showed one hour wrong for years then

somebody could have told me :) Good that you do it now

Edit. This one looks very odd to me


# hwclock --show --utc
Sat 03 Sep 2011 02:40:48 PM CEST -0.856308 seconds

Does not make sense at all. I hate to go into BIOS. Do I have to?
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disciple
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#17 Post by disciple »

# hwclock --show --utc
Sat 03 Sep 2011 02:40:48 PM CEST -0.856308 seconds

Does not make sense at all.
If you looked at `hwclock --help` you would see that this is telling you what the time in your selected timezone is if your hardware clock is set to UTC. But your hardware clock is actually set to localtime, so this is not the correct time in your timezone.
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nooby
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#18 Post by nooby »

That made sense indeed. So me being a noob did not know that the CMOS RTC should be set to UTC created a lot of trouble for me for years :)

So if I get it. You recommend that I go to BIOS and set it to UTC

or use a software that can change the RTC to UTC. I think the E17 had an app that could do that. It at least promised to be able to?
the bad thing for me would be that each OS I have installed already. all the puppies and knoppix and slitaz and tinycore and porteus and archiso and a lot of OS that I don't remember now that I ahve installed already oh Peppermint. Lubuntu and some more. all of them will go the wrong time and would need some reinstall or a change of clock somehow? So much work :)
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disciple
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#19 Post by disciple »

nooby wrote:That made sense indeed. So me being a noob did not know that the CMOS RTC should be set to UTC created a lot of trouble for me for years :)

So if I get it. You recommend that I go to BIOS and set it to UTC
Yes I do recommend you have it set to UTC, for the reasons Pizzasgood explained, but you will need to tell Puppy that it is set to UTC.
or use a software that can change the RTC to UTC.
See Pizzasgood's thread.
all of them will go the wrong time and would need some reinstall or a change of clock somehow? So much work :)
If all your OSs currently think your hardware clock is set to local time, there is no reason you can't leave it that way (you haven't reported having any problems with the clock currently, have you?). It just means you will need to keep updating your clock manually for summer time.

N.B. if anyone is wondering why Linux does not automatically change the clock for daylight saving / summer time when using local time for the hardware clock, think about it: even if you had no Linux, what if you were dual booting two copies of Windows (this used to be more common than it is now). Both copies would change the clock when it came time for daylight saving / summer time, so the time would be incorrect. The same thing would occur if you changed time zones. The Microsoft way does not work - Windows is stupid.
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L18L
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puppytime

#20 Post by L18L »

disciple,
thank you for your explanations.

And I have to correct my observations.
I did not expect this:
3. N.B. that GMT+## and GMT-## settings in fact mean the opposite to what you would expect... but the timezone selector gui in Puppy (or at least in my old version) swaps them around so they do work the way you would expect.

Because puppy was showing my time as GMT-1 though I had selected GMT+1 I was thinking that was the reason for the deviation of 2 hours.

But control is better than just think:
I have controlled my BIOS time and found that it was 2 hours wrong !

Corrected BIOS time and now my puppy time is correct too.
I can live with the indication of GMT-1

Back to the OriginalPoster: Did this help you or do still think your puppy is buggy?

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#21 Post by Mercedes350se »

L18L,

I have never thought that my Puppy was buggy. Just curious why, as asked previously, why the user has the option/necessity to set Puppy time when it (Puppy) could pick up BIOS time?

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#22 Post by nooby »

Yes it is unusual but the Dev most likely wanted to be nice?

I am twisted or torn or undecided about all this. Sure I can try to get into BIOS or use some program that is able to look and report bios time but the result is very confusing due to me not logical enough? :)

And I had that error of one hour for years and now finally it always show right time so why fix something that is broken if it keeps the illusion it is the right time? confusing it is to me at least, look here?
# hwclock --show --utc
Sat 03 Sep 2011 02:40:48 PM CEST -0.856308 seconds

# hwclock --show --localtime
Sat 03 Sep 2011 12:41:24 PM CEST -0.548380 seconds
#
I guess it has to do with Day time savings Summer time going on until October and such?

But it should be the other way around. My local time is two hours earlier than UTC as I get it. We have +1 hour,

When it is 1PM UTC it is then 2PM at my local time but now in Summer we are 3PM instead while that report I quoted says the opposite?
Last edited by nooby on Sun 04 Sep 2011, 09:09, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: BIOS time and Puppy time

#23 Post by L18L »

Mercedes350se,
sorry that I had misinterpreted your questions as a request for an easy bugfix.
Mercedes350se wrote:Is there a reason that Puppy 3.01 does not automatically adopt BIOS time? Is it a Linux trait in general?

The reason I ask is that, when doing a e2fsck check, I have received a "Superblock write in the future" message. Easy enough to fix, just correct Puppy time.
I also had "Superblock write in the future" fixed by spending 2 hours without puppy :lol:

And now I have fixed my BIOS time, easy enough for you and me but not for nooby :)

nooby,
when you start your Computer there is a message
Press Del to enter setup
I think your swedish keyboard the 'Del' key has another text,
on a German keyboard it is 'Entf' (Abbreviation of 'Entfernen').
There in the BIOS you can easily correct your BIOS time.

Mercedes350se,
your questions have produced useful informations
and now it is clear for me
- choosing time zone from GMT or region does not matter :)
- puppy changes the sign of GMT because it thinks I am thinking wrong. :roll:

L

edited: nooby, I have written this before seeing your post

nooby
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#24 Post by nooby »

There in the BIOS you can easily correct your BIOS time.
yes but then I have to start anew again or can I just reset the clock maybe? Hm I am dense. I guess I only have to reset the clock once?

Okay I give it a try. That goes fast just a reboot and to into BIOS and adjust and save and then boot and adjust again?
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L18L
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BIOS time

#25 Post by L18L »

nooby wrote:
There in the BIOS you can easily correct your BIOS time.
yes but then I have to start anew again or can I just reset the clock maybe? Hm I am dense. I guess I only have to reset the clock once?

Okay I give it a try. That goes fast just a reboot and to into BIOS and adjust and save and then boot and adjust again?
yes, only once
and maybe again when summer time will be over :)

nooby
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#26 Post by nooby »

Thanks your a friendly guy, much appreciated and forgive me for derailing the thread. I have learned a lot so I got carried away happy to know more about why my computer acted up. :)

I guess I leave this thread now.

Set it as solved like this ?
BIOS time and Puppy time [Solved]
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disciple
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#27 Post by disciple »

Oh, look. There is a "secret" option which doesn't show up in `hwclock --help`. I wonder why they made it "secret"... and for that matter, why they didn't make it `hwclock --verbose`.

Code: Select all

~# hwclock --debug
hwclock from util-linux-2.13-pre7
Using /dev/rtc interface to clock.
Last drift adjustment done at 1301813704 seconds after 1969
Last calibration done at 1301813704 seconds after 1969
Hardware clock is on local time
Assuming hardware clock is kept in local time.
Waiting for clock tick...
...got clock tick
Time read from Hardware Clock: 2011/09/04 22:50:54
Hw clock time : 2011/09/04 22:50:54 = 1315133454 seconds since 1969
Sun 04 Sep 2011 22:50:54 NZST  -0.207908 seconds
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disciple
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#28 Post by disciple »

The reason I ask is that, when doing a e2fsck check, I have received a "Superblock write in the future" message. Easy enough to fix, just correct Puppy time.
I'm a bit concerned because I don't think anything we've discussed so far actually explains this error. I think there is/was essentially a bug in Puppy whereby the filesystem is checked before the system clock is set (N.B. in my old version of Puppy it is set by /etc/rc.d/rc.country). If the BIOS clock is in local time, the error message will be generated because at this point the filesystem checker thinks that the BIOS clock is in UTC. This would be essentially the same problem as https://bugs.gentoo.org/142850?id=142850. One of the guys there was recompiling his kernel twice a year for daylight saving, which doesn't seem very sustainable ;)

But it looks like they have found the workaround for this problem in comment 42. Since the default is for Puppy to use a BIOS clock set to local time, if the system clock can't be set sooner, that config file should be present by default. The man page for e2fsck.conf provides more explanation.
But really, we should be encouraging people to set their BIOS clock to UTC, instead of following Microsoft's stupidity.
Last edited by disciple on Sun 04 Sep 2011, 11:15, edited 2 times in total.
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#29 Post by disciple »

If anyone getting that error message is actually running a recent Puppy, please report it as a bug.
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postfs1

#30 Post by postfs1 »

To reedit up to date.
Last edited by postfs1 on Mon 28 Mar 2016, 01:43, edited 4 times in total.

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#31 Post by Béèm »

In polarpup in var/log/messages I am already 5 september.
Time savers:
Find packages in a snap and install using Puppy Package Manager (Menu).
[url=http://puppylinux.org/wikka/HomePage]Consult Wikka[/url]
Use peppyy's [url=http://wellminded.com/puppy/pupsearch.html]puppysearch[/url]

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#32 Post by nooby »

disciple wrote:... If the BIOS clock is in local time, the error message will be generated because at this point the filesystem checker thinks that the BIOS clock is in UTC.

This would be essentially the same problem as https://bugs.gentoo.org/142850?id=142850. One of the guys there was recompiling his kernel twice a year for daylight saving, which doesn't seem very sustainable ;)

But it looks like they have found the workaround for this problem in comment 42.

Since the default is for Puppy to use a BIOS clock set to local time, ...we should be encouraging people to set their BIOS clock to UTC, instead of following Microsoft's stupidity.


I have set my Bios time to UTC now. So I don't have to recompile Gento. Hahah what a core.

So as long as one have Bios to UTC then everything will be okay?

Sounds assuring :)
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nooby
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#33 Post by nooby »

Damn I fail to get this. I mean logically but okay I always fail with logic.

Local time here is 22.01 or so I did this some minute ago.
# hwclock --show --utc
Sun 04 Sep 2011 11:59:19 PM CEST -0.585188 seconds
#
UTC is also known as Universal Coordinated Time
Current Time Sunday, 4 September 2011, 20:01:31

that is the true UTC and that was what I told BIOS to set it too.

So this hwclock --show --utc seems to not give true time of the hardware
or the hardware are reset to puppy time when puppy boot up?


What is going on?
Ooops should say that after correcting BIOS then puppy was one hour wrong so I corrected that one and now it show this gross error.
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#34 Post by tasmod »

Beware, hwclock reads the bios time BUT reports in localtime format.


Using GMT has always caused problems in Puppy, not least because Puppy reverses the notation + to - and vice versa.
It is best to run the locale setting to your location. i.e. Europe/London

The problem also shows because the 'clock' in the tray is another app that reads the time and 'plays' with it in script.

I'm not sure about 3.1 but maybe try my app Psync from the forum Additional Software/system section to see if it will run in 3.1.
Set your locale (reboot) and run the app, select a Region nearest to you (probably UK) and the app will do the rest. your time will be synchronised to within millisecs to 'standard' time. It will correct up to a day out !!

If it works it's also worth clicking the Help button for explanation on 'time'.
Rob
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The moment after you press "Post" is the moment you actually see the typso 8)

nooby
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#35 Post by nooby »

Rob tasmod what you say now goes 180 degree counter to another member in the thread.

So whom should I trust apart from me maybe misunderstood.

can not you and him talk about it and explain to each other why you come to opposite conclutions?

disciple here
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 988#559988

To go out on internet and get sync time is to have a constant thing going on. It is not something I like at all. Can one set it to do it at boot up and maybe at shut down or something . Not all the time.
Last edited by nooby on Sun 04 Sep 2011, 20:21, edited 1 time in total.
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