[ntp:questions] questions] Automatic time synchronization of local hw clock.

Casper H.S. Dik Casper.Dik at OrSPaMcle.COM
Sun Apr 20 10:16:08 UTC 2014


David Taylor <david-taylor at blueyonder.co.uk.invalid> writes:

>It would be helpful if the operating systems were to agree on how to use 
>the BIOS clock.  Not every computer travels during the year, and not 
>every location has summer-time transitions.

Right; dual boot (or more) is a problem and with multiple
"boot environments" for the same OS, running the BIOS
clock at localtime always gives issues during the DST
transition.  Each of the boot environments keeps a record
whether it has adjusted the clock for DST and so multiple
changes can be made.

>Most users would likely be very confused were they to see the BIOS clock 
>time in UTC!

When would you see that?  When you get into the BIOS?

>(Actually, the only time UTC has caused me a problem has been on Linux 
>systems, not on Windows...)

Not my experience.  UTC is the only proper setting; it is the only 
way to have multiple boot environments.  Windows XP has issues with that.

Then there is the problem with the times stored in file systems
under Windows; while Unix type systems always store UTC, that doesn't
happen under Windows with FAT; fortunately, this seems to have
been fixed with NTFS.  (It now has 64 bit time stamps based with
100 nano-seconds granularity since 01-01-1601, 00:00 (UTC)

Casper



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