[lug] Time zone grumbling

[Daniel Webb]

I'm not sure if my problems right now are a symptom of Debian or the Linux
world in general, but I've been using Linux for 7 years now and I have yet to
see a sensible and consitent description and/or implementation of time on
Linux.  For example, I chose (unwisely) the "use UTC" option when I installed
a new Debian.  Now the "UTC" time gives the local time and the "local" time
gives UTC-7.  So I should be able to change that, right?

$apropos timezone
tzconfig (8)         - set the local timezone
tzselect (1)         - view timezones
tzsetup (8)          - set the local timezone

Hm.  Three ways to change the time zone, not to mention another one in KDE.
All of which fail to address this problem.  KDE's clock has screwed up my time
zone so many times I won't even touch it any more.

So, is there any place on the net that actually explains all the dozen or so
config files and ways to configure the time on Linux?