Well, it's your network and you know better. I'd strongly advise against removing ntp. Too many things rely on precise clock, security incl. Install ntpd in your proxy and sync other computers on the LAN from there.

I got rather lost in post #15. So let me just make a few observations that might be relevant.

• In edgy (the most recent Ubuntu I've used), there is a /etc/network/if-up.d/ntpdate script that by default will attempt to sync time (using ntpdate) when a network connection comes up. The config file for this script is /etc/default/ntpdate. If you want to suppress the attempted time sync, unset NTPSERVERS in the config file.
• The command ps -f -C ntpd will show you whether a NTP daemon is running. You can also monitor network traffic for udp/123 using wireshark or tcpdump (or any other packet sniffer).
• If you are dual/multi booting with a MS OS, you need to tell all other OSes on that system that the hardware clock is set to local time. Since I now find out you have two Linux OSes installed, I am wondering if one of them still shows the hardware clock as being UTC. If so, and it automatically attempts to sync time when an interface comes up, that will screw up everything.

Please note that /etc/network/if-up.d/ntpdate is part of the ntpdate package and is not part of the ntp-simple or ntp-server package. (At least in edgy.)

EDIT: I seriously doubt that anyting associated with X or GDM is doing anything to your time. Also, I believe if you use the default /etc/syslog.conf file that everything you get from dmesg also ends up in /var/log/syslog. There is also /var/log/boot which records some of the boot sequence. (It contains escape characters which makes less suspect it is a binary file. But it is ASCII.)

EDIT2: If you want to check what happens w/o starting X, GDM, etc., and also not starting a number of other services, you can boot into single user mode ("recovery mode" in the GRUB menu). This will start everything in /etc/rcS but not much else. You will be running as root so be careful.

Thanks for all the input and help. I sort of gave up on the problem due to pressing real life problems. No job - gas approaching $4.00 a gallon - no health or dental care.

I'm amazed and grateful for the help you all are great.

Also as I mentioned in a previous post a storm blew out my internet connection.
Get ready to laugh if you must - it's a modem.

Worked fine for me for years. Linux - Windows either way.

Windows just sucks because of the annoying virus worm adware and etc.

With patience and time I have downloaded Ubuntu iso's.

Now I can't even get text pages reliably. I think my max speed is 9600 bps. Old school speed.

My modem is not broken - I borrowed a friends laptop and hooked it up to the phone companies jack outside - same dismal response.

The phone company says they will hook me up to dsl for 19.95. After further questioning my bill will jump to $60+ for a phone and dsl.

Nice!

I'll bet the phone company people ain't missed any meals lately. I'll guarantee that I have.

Long post about nothing you can help with. Just venting.

Really thanks for the help.

I'll briefly describe the problem again. I have a small lan consisting of a laptop and a desktop system. The desktop hooks to the net over a modem. The laptop hooks to the desktop over a wireless lan. The laptop hooks to the internet courtesy of tinyproxy.

Neither computer ever showed the right time. Well the laptop did right after sudo ntpdate ntp.ubuntu.com was run. At reboot it was again incorrect every time.

Today I was working on the laptop. I discovered a program called htpdate which if you are persistent enough will give you a fairly accurate time.

Ntpdate is too lame (in my humble opinion) to use a proxy server.

Since I was still confused about what was actually screwing up my time I shut down the desktop. This also resulted in shutting down all network and internet activity.

The laptop was showing the correct time. I then rebooted the laptop.

The time came up incorrectly. On a wild hunch I changed the line in /etc/default/rcS that read UTC=no (default on clean install) to UTC=yes.

After reboot the time had not screwed up.

As a further test I started the desktop and resynced the laptop with htpdate. The next reboot showed the correct time.

So the problem is solved.