Hardware clock issue with Kubuntu-15.10-desktop-amd64

[Inapickle]

Hi,

I am not as yet an active member of the Linux fraternity, but I would like to try it, largely with a view to using KDenLive for video edting.

Presently I am running Windows 7 64-bit. My (salient) PC hardware specs are:

Processor: AMD FX-6300 Vishera
Motherboard: Asus M5A78L-MLX-Plus with integrated ATI Radeon 3000 graphics
RAM: 8Gb DDR3
DVD/CD drive (SATA slot 1)
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 120GB - OS (currently in SATA slot 2)
HDD: Seagate 500GB (currently in SATA slot 3)

Today I downloaded Kubuntu 15.10 from this page, to try:

http://www.kubuntu.org/getkubuntu/

Choosing the 64-bit option automatically selected the Kubuntu-15.10-desktop-amd64.iso (from cdimage.ubuntu.com) which I downloaded and burned to DVD. To avoid any possible issues, I disconnected the SDD and HDD drives before loading up the DVD. The DVD booted Kubuntu without any problems and I selected the Try option. When Kubuntu opened, I immediately noticed that the clock was showing UTC/GMT time, 5 hours ahead of my local time zone (Eastern US and Canada). After looking around I shut down and removed the DVD, as prescribed, disconnected power whilst I reconnected the SSD and HDD drives and booted into Windows. Lo and behold, the Windows clock was now displaying UTC/GMT and not local time. I tried rebooting Windows several times but nothing changed. Finally I went into BIOS and saw that the hardware system clock had been changed !

The 'live' (Try) boot is supposed make no changes to the computer isn't it ? So how come it did ? And reading around on this I find that it is a long standing issue (bug), not just with Kubuntu, but other distros as well. So why does it still persist? Fortunately I am clued up enough to know how to change the clock back in the BIOS, but what about people who don't ?

More importantly, if I do go ahead and install Kubuntu, am I going to be find the same issue? I was planning on installing Kubuntu on another spare HDD, with the understanding that if I put the drive after the SDD (with Windows 7 on) and disconnect the SDD when installing Kubuntu, I should end up with a configuration that allows me to boot into the Kubuntu drive from the BIOS boot menu - I want to keep the two systems completely separate, other than possibly sharing files on the other HDD drive i.e no windows 7 option appearing in the Kubuntu boot menu or anything. Am I correct on that?

In addition, I don't want Kubuntu messing with the hardware clock. Can that be avoided, with absolute certainty? I use True Image 2016 for backing up Windows and don't want any possibility of back-up schedules getting screwed up.

Cheers.

P.S. Why so difficult to type on this forum from a Windows PC? Ended up having to copy paste it in.

[sithlord48]

LInux uses UTC for the hardware clock . set up window to do the same
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...UTC_in_Windows

[claydoh]

LInux uses UTC for the hardware clock . set up window to do the same
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...UTC_in_Windows

Or, conversely:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ub...Time_Conflicts

[Inapickle]

Or, conversely:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ub...Time_Conflicts

Thank-you !

The reason I’m so twitchy about this clock thing is that a while back I considered OpenSuse and a similar thing happened with a‘Live’ session booted off a USB stick. In that case I did have the Windows drive connected. The weird thing then was that the OpenSuse clock displayed, not central UTC time, but just 2 hours in advance. Then when I shut down and re-booted into Windows the windows clock was likewise off, but after several re-boots it corrected itself. That would have been OK, but I found that True Image would no longer launch. I can’t be sure, but I suspect the clock offset thing somehow caused some conflict in indexing of the backup archives. Re-installing True Image thankfully resolved it, but I don’t want to risk this sort of thing happening again.

So, according to that documentation it should be possible to make Kubuntu respect the hardware clock set to ‘local’ time, quote:
Make Linux use 'Local' time

To tell your Ubuntu system that the hardware clock is set to 'local' time:
1. edit /etc/default/rcS
2. add or change the following section
# Set UTC=yes if your hardware clock is set to UTC (GMT)UTC=no

But this now leaves me pondering. Looking back at the OpenSuse installation instructions I see there was actually an option to set the hardware clock to UTC time or not, during installation:

http://opensuse-guide.org/installation.php

But I can’t see any equivalent option in the TimeZone section of the Kubuntu installation instructions:

https://userbase.kde.org/Kubuntu/Installation#DVD_3


So, if I go ahead as planned and install Kubuntu, with the Windows 7 drive disconnected, I assume Kubuntu will automatically change the hardware clock to UTC. Right? Question is if I then go into Kubuntu (with the Windows drive still disconnected, so it’s not affected) and make this change to “ UTC=no”, will Kubuntu automatically reset the hardware clock (correctly) or will I need to reset the clock in BIOS myself, and if so will I need to do that before or after making the change in Kubuntu? I just need to be clear on this as I don’t want to find myself in a clock conflict that I can’t resolve.

Would appreciate clear advice on this. Remember I’m not even a Newbie yet, so please go easy on me


P.S. Sorry about the post font, but again I've had to copy paste the text.

[logan01]

Is there some special clock internal to the computer which has nothing to do with the clock on the screen? I have no idea. I do know when I loaded kubuntu onto my windows 10 laptop, the time had advanced (I think) several hours. After I had booted a couple of times, both OS clocks were accurate and synced with one another.

[claydoh]

wow, such huge fonts you have there

Back when I dual/triple/quad booted Windows, Beos and 2 linuxes, I only ever had this problem when I had manually set the time in the bios. Once I stopped that (ignoring the bios completely), and let the OS set the time automagically after specifying time zone, etc -- letting the system clock be set to UTC, and using time zone changes to actually change the local time time. I never had an issue again. Of course that was well over a decade ago. Even searching for this, the vast majority of search hits for it are rather old. But obviously still a thing for some.

K(U)buntu is a desktop focused OS, with much of the backend stuff normal users seldom touch left to the terminal and text files, as most Linux sysadmins prefer, while also keeping the ISO image size down to a manageable live session size. Suse has more commercial, business history and has some long-standing built-in GUI stuff that is just a gui atop those text files and terminal tools, and dates back to when it was not even open source. If this was a truly common setting to change, there likely would likely be something for it in system settings somewhere.

[Inapickle]

Font size duly reduced.

I really don't have a distro preference, at this point, except that when I did a search for 'best' distros to use with KDenLive, OpenSuse, Kubuntu and Arch cropped up a lot.

Anyhow, I think I'll give Kubuntu a go and hope for the best with the clock thing. I'm sure you guys will be there to bail me out if I get into trouble

[claydoh]

Anyhow, I think I'll give Kubuntu a go and hope for the best with the clock thing. I'm sure you guys will be there to bail me out if I get into trouble

But of course Hopefully your nick doesn't translate to reality for you, though

[Inapickle]

OK, so I've just installed Kubuntu-15.10-desktop-amd64 on my PC. As expected the hardware clock in BIOS has been changed to UTC time. Before I reconnect the drive with Win7 on a want to change Kubuntu to respect 'Local Time' and adjust the hardware clock accordingly.

If I open Terminal and type in edit/etc/default/rcS (as described in that link) all that comes back is a line saying that no such directory exists, so there's obviously more to it than that.

Could someone please advise what to do.

Thanks a lot.

[sithlord48]

To edit that file you can use the command

sudo nano /etc/default/rcS

[Snowhog]

Or, kdesudo kate /etc/default/rcS if you aren't familiar with nano.

[Inapickle]

Thanks.

Ah, sudo nano.....got it now....nano being the text editor.

In desperation, I found and used the command in this article:

http://www.webupd8.org/2014/09/dual-boot-fix-time-differences-between.html

[URL="http://www.webupd8.org/2014/09/dual-boot-fix-time-differences-between.html"]sudo sed -i 's/UTC=yes/UTC=no/' /etc/default/rcS
[/URL]

Then rebooted into BIOS, reset the hardware clock to Local Time and booted back into Kubuntu - all with the Win7 drive disconnected.

Did the trick.

@Snowhog. Thanks for your advice also. Guess I need to gen myself up on all of this Sudo command stuff.

[sithlord48]

sudo = Super User DO .. i.e run this as root