Linux Systems and the New DST

An anonymous reader writes "The recent changes in the Daylight Saving Time will affect virtually all computer systems in the US one week from now. Microsoft has been busy preparing Windows users for 'Y2DST,' and all the major Linux distributions have also issued patches. How can you be sure your Linux systems are ready, and what can you do to get them ready if they're not? This how-to article at Linux-Watch answers both questions in simple language and with easy-to-follow instructions."

Simple

[SIGBUS]

Set you system to run on UTC. No daylight savings hassles to worry about.

NTP?

[CarpetShark]

How does this work with NTP? Will the system just stay up-to-date from another system that understands the new rules, or does NTP all work on UTC so that it's not aware of this, or something?

Re:Root Cause

[MrShaggy]

What if this like that silly-talking-shrub says is somewhat true? If by doing this you save 10% of your energy bill, because you don't need to use your lights in the house as much?? If you leave the blinds open, you might also be helping to heat your house somewhat. All that good stuff. I have a big house, and any saving can help. For everyones griping about how a slight deviation in their routine over a weekend none-the-less. Unlike asking everyone to drive electric cars, this is relatively simple solution. The other huge savings on the commute would be just to put six gears in everyones cars, this would allow the engine to run at a greatly reduced revolutions, putting out less pollution and using less gas over all. But try to say that to the big companies.

Just hire a few brazilians

[pazu]

It's pretty funny all this fuss about DST changes. Here in Brazil we had to cope with DST changes almost every year for the last 20 years, and by now we pretty much got used to it, on our daily lives and when developing or maintaining computer systems. Every system administration knows that he'll have to update the tz database year, or update the Windows registry accordingly [microsoft.com].

I guess that's proof that in adversity, we thrive. Thanks to the screwed up economy we had a few decades ago, we know have one of the most advanced banking systems in the world. Thanks to retarded DST policies, we learned how to adapt from that :)

Re:Late in the game?

[rwhiffen]

Funny thing about the 'act' that was passed is it has a clause about congressional review. So at some point, congress could have said "This is stupid" and undone the DST change. Everyone was waiting for the fall session to start, I suspect, to ensure the DST change was going to stick.

Further, if your running Solaris it's not just a TZ patch. There's libc changes:

http://src.opensolaris.org/source/diff/onnv/onnv-g ate/usr/src/lib/libc/port/gen/localtime.c?r1=1138& r2=0 [opensolaris.org]

There's also glibc issues in RHEL 2.1 but they're not quite the same as Solaris.
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_41_9949 [redhat.com]

Cheers,
Rich

Re:Win vs Lin

[Bacon Bits]

Yes, but UTC systems will still display the correct time. They're 100% accurate, they just have the wrong time zone. They will work perfectly well with and agree with patched systems. This is one reason you can login to a server in Cairo from New York: the systems agree that the time is the same. Windows doesn't much care about time zone changes. You'll be able to log in on March 12th whether you're patched or not.

The only problem MS made here is by not using UTC for Exchange calendar entries in the first place. Rather, for using timestamp without time zone, which, frankly, is absurd. Did they not expect email to be a global system?

Re:Simple

[toleraen]

Come on pople its not a big deal.

Tell that to my Outlook calendar. In two weeks when I host my telecon involving people from several states around the US, how many do you think are going to call on time, an hour early, or an hour late? I'm not looking forward to repeating myself over and over. Besides, 4k is chump change when you're talking about the time wasted when dozens of meetings get screwed up (mainly due to PEBKAC errors, but still.)

You can blame reagan for that nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

The 60's and 70's education prepared america to cut over to metric. Carter signed the bill in 1982, we were to move America over to it. Then reagan said it would cause too many issues. Gads, that guy was a PISS POOR leader who has caused this country trillions of dollars. I thank god that in another 50 years, historians will be able to look over his crap and will almost certainly decide that he was one of the worse pres. that America had. I only wish that the republicans would get over their demigod status of the man.

Why is this such an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooh! Ahh! Help! The world is going to end!

Get over it.

In Australia, DST was extended for a month last year for the Commonwealth Games. Microsoft issued an update for Windows, and NOTHING BAD HAPPENED.

But, this all happened outside of the United States, so it doesn't really matter now, does it?