[SOLVED] XFCE - time setting

michaelk · 07-14-2022, 04:09 AM

The hardware clock AKA BIOS or RTC is not the system clock. It has no time zone setting and therefore has to be referenced. UEFI motherboards after 2016 according to the Arch wiki have a BIOS timezone setting but I don't have anything that modern...

If the hardware clock is set to local time it must be converted to UTC first then the system clock is set at boot time. Once the network is up ntp if installed syncs the system clock to a time server.

business_kid · 07-14-2022, 04:11 AM

Right - A lot of replies (Thanks) and I've read them all. Some facts here

I'm on UTC.
/etc/localtime is a symlink pointing to /usr/share/zoneinfo/Eire.
It is correct that the RazPi has no RTC. Slarm64 accounts for this in init, by setting time from ntp servers. When you install first, it comes up in Jan 1970. I haven't added an RTC.
ntp is on Irish ntp servers and handles Winter/Summertime changes OK.
Yes, the system is fine, but the display is messed up and holding on to that mess accross reboots, which is even more irritating.
I think we all know the OS side of time, and it's certainly laid out for me here in detail.
What we don't know is where the XFCE clock is getting it's nutty ideas from.
Another useful thing to know is where it is saving them to.
xclock behaves and displays the right time, not xfce's version of the time.
Interestingly, if I right-click on the clock digits, offering me Clock (greyed out), Properties, Move, Remove, & a link to the Panel Menu. Why Clock is greyed out I don't know.

EDIT: Right after I wrote this post, I logged out of X, deleted every file in my homedir linked to X and beginning with a dot (.XAuth, .xresources, etc) & restarted X. Still the two hour difference. Does anyone know what runs the xfce clock?

business_kid · 07-14-2022, 05:25 AM

Sorted it myself, finally.

I started X as root. The time was correct, which narrowed the problem to my homedir. But I'd already cleared out all the dot<something> files there. So I zeroed in on ~/.config/xfce4 next. Now in research mode, I would have thoroughly sorted through those files, but those days are past. I restored a backup of ~/.config/xfce4, and it's displaying the correct time

.

It had been bugging me, because I had been glancing at it for a quick timecheck, rather than one-handedly root out a mobile phone. I did have a quick culprit search, and located ~/.config/xfce4/panel/clock-14.rc. My correct version reads

Code:

bash-5.1$ cat .config/xfce4/panel/clock-14.rc
DigitalFormat=%T
TooltipFormat=%A %d %B %Y
ClockType=2
ShowFrame=false
ShowSeconds=false
ShowMilitary=true
ShowMeridiem=false
TrueBinary=false
FlashSeparators=false

What the incorrect version looked like, I've no idea. But it's the prime suspect after it's been executed

.

henca · 07-15-2022, 12:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by business_kid

Interestingly, if I right-click on the clock digits, offering me Clock (greyed out), Properties, Move, Remove, & a link to the Panel Menu. Why Clock is greyed out I don't know.

The "greyed out" "Clock" at the top of the menu should probably be considered as a title rather than a menu choice. On my XFCE installation I get such grey titles on every item I right-click on in the panel. "Applications menu", "Action buttons", "Orage panel clock" and "Launcher" are all examples of such grey titles.

regards Henrik