Strange time phenomena (explained and solved)

[errol]

Whenever installing Kubuntu from a CD (the last two versions [9.04, 9.10], at least), I have an inconsistency that I cannot explain and can only resolve after installation.
My time area is GMT+2 (Israel). My bios is set with the correct time. I have Windows installed which uses the correct date and time, so I know that the time is correct.
Whenever I try and install Kubuntu (I haven't tried other Linux distributions), from a CD there is a stage where one has to state the time zone where one lives. Automatically the Kubuntu "time-zoner" ads on two hours to the correctly set computer time. My only workaround is to correct the time after installation.
Is this a bug I should report? This happened on both my computers so I doubt if it's a computer problem.
Errol

[kubicle]

Re: Strange time phenomena

The underlying cause for "strange time adjustments" is that traditionally *nix systems have the hardware (bios) clock set to UTC time, and the real time is calculated based on your time zone (+2 hours). This is problematic if you also use windows, which defaults to hardware clock being set to local time.

Many linux installation disk present the option to choose whether hardware clock is set to local time or UTC during set up, but I can't remember whether *buntu installation has that (it's been a while since I installed a *buntu system from disk).

You can choose the hardware clock type after installation, though, editing /etc/default/rcS and setting "UTC=" to yes or no.

[errol]

Re: Strange time phenomena

Thanks Kubicle for the explanation. As I said I was able to resolve the problem after installation but at least I know it isn't a bug I should report.