Ask user if hardware clock should be on UTC
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
base-config (Ubuntu) |
Fix Released
|
Low
|
Colin Watson |
Bug Description
I got Ubuntu in dual boot with Windows 2000.
When I ran Ubuntu and then booted to Windows, the time was off by 2 hours. Since
I have several Debian systems I knew that the hardware clock can be run on the
set time zone or on UTC.
Ubuntu uses UTC for the hardware clock, which is okay on a Ubuntu-only or
Linux-only system (file /etc/defaults/rcS: UTC="yes").
My suggestion is that before Ubuntu changes the system clock in this way, it
should ask the user. So either the user should be asked, as it is being done in
Debian installations, or the system clock should always be on the local timezone.
Another possibility would be to stay the way it is, but have an option in one of
the settings programs to change hardware clock behavior.
This was discussed recently, and the consensus seemed to be that a smart default
would be to use UTC if there were no Windows operating systems on the computer,
and local time if Windows is present.