I recently created myself a USB bootable version of Kubuntu 8.10 using instructions from this website --> http://www.pendrivelinux.com/

So far I am happy with it - but a timezone issue is driving me nuts - I'd appreciate if someone would clear it up for me.

I have my hardware clock set to UTC. However, I want my system timezone to be EST. So when I boot up the system, the 'date' command shows the time in UTC. I can now do a "dkpg-reconfigure tzdata" and change the timezone to "America/New_York". Now the date command shows the correct time in EST. So far so good.

My problem is - when I reboot the system, it is back to UTC again. The effect of the reconfigure is wiped out. The dkpg-reconfigure updates the /etc/localtime with /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York - but the reboot reverts this change and I am back to UTC. The time is showing correctly, but for the wrong timezone.

What am I doing wrong here ? I am basically looking for the process that is restoring the timezone to UTC on startup. I can see a script that copies the time from the hardware clock to the system time, but that should not copy the timezone, should it ? I have already told the system that the hardware clock is set to UTC and I was simply expecting it to recognize that the HW clock is at UTC and the system clock needs to be at EST and adjust accordingly.

The key is that the /etc/localtime change is reverted. If I simply put a manual "cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York /etc/localtime" in rc.local, then I am good. But my question is - shouldn't the change persist ?

Any pointers would be deeply appreciated - thanks

sudo nano /etc/default/rcS
If UTC=yes change it UTC=noi then save and close. We need to change timezone for localtime.
Type su and be root.
rm /etc/localtime
ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Your_Zone /etc/localtime
Set time date -s "date and time"
It was really irritating for me. I found a solution. Also it works on debian etch.

unfortunately I have already tried that and failed - that was purpose of the post

Like I said , my HW clock is set to UTC and that is how I want it. It is the timezone of the system clock that I want to change.


Like I have already said - even if I do this [BTW this is precisely what 'dpkg-reconfigure tzdata' will do] , with every reboot , /etc/localtime is back to UTC - that is problem I need help with