[olpc-help] community-support Digest, Vol 2, Issue 33

[chuck418 at cox.net]

"Daniel Keebler" <danielkeebler at gmail.com> 
Subject: [olpc-help] Help with Time Zone, Time and Date 
< i cannot figure out how to set the time, date and time zone...>

You are not the 1st to face this issue. I'm no Linux guru, but here is what those more knowledgeable than myself have said in several posts. Try these techniques until you get one to work, then please report back.
Kudos as always to those who wrote these words, which I am merely repeating:
Linux and sugar seem to have different ideas about timezone (/etc/timezone vs sugar-control-panel). Sugar wins, but it's confusing. 
 
Why won't the time stay set? I have enabled ntpd and thatfixes it eventually but not right after boot. I have rdate and may stuff it somewhere. But I'm concerned that the date is always wrong after a reboot... 

> It has a command-line interface and supports linux.  But I failed to install it since it requires kernel headers.  I don't think XO comes with linux src (can you verify that?  I am simply saying that since /usr/src/ is empty) nor gcc (is 
it possible to install gnu toolchain on XO?). 
 
There is no source/headers shipped on the XO because of the limited space (1GB). There is definitely, however, plenty of information on development for the XO on the developers wiki page (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Developers). Several people 
on IRC have mentioned they installed gcc via 'yum install gcc'. 
 
After you are sure your timezone is correct and you fix your date with ntpdate, do 'hwclock --systohc'. This will set the hardware clock to the system time. This is just the way linux does it. 
 
the system clock is about 13 hrs fast. 
It's already tomorrow  :D I tried a conventional linux date -s command to reset the time, but it replied with an error that I could not do that. Is there another way?refer to 
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Support_FAQ#How_do_I_set_the_date_and_time_on_my_laptop.3F

There are two steps required. First, you have to set the time zone. Open up the terminal activity and type "sugar-control-panel -h timezone|more". This will page you through the list of all the possible time zones. The space bar goes to the next page, and a carriage return/enter goes to the next line. 
 
Once you find the one you want, do a "q" to get out of "more". Then type "su" to become root. Do *not* type "su -" -- this will mess up the path settings. Then type "sugar-control-panel -s timezone <your time zone goes here>". To check it, type "sugar-control-panel -g timezone".  
OK ... *now* type "su -". Then type "ntpdate pool.ntp.org". The machine will sync to the time standard server. That's it. 

best,
chuck 2.0
Life is a crap shoot, you make your own good time.