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On Sat, Mar 20, 2021 at 11:37 AM Andreas K. Huettel |
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<dilfridge@g.o> wrote: |
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> Hi all, |
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> why do we *copy* the timezone file to /etc/localtime, instead of symlinking it like everyone else? |
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> |
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> 1) Our handbook recommends: |
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> |
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> echo "Europe/Brussels" > /etc/timezone |
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> emerge --config sys-libs/timezone-data |
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> |
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> which is effectively doing |
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> |
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> echo "Europe/Brussels" > /etc/timezone |
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> cp -f /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Brussels /etc/localtime |
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> |
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> 2) Most other distros seem to just do |
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> |
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> ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Brussels /etc/localtime |
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> |
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> and use the link content as timezone name (this is also what is required by systemd). |
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> |
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> Does anyone remember the reason for 1) ? Or is that lost in history? |
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I think the most obvious reason would be to support late-mounting of |
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/usr, after the system clock has been reset with a UTC offset on boot. |
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To make this work, the /etc/localtime file would need to be available |
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when the hwclock init script runs. |
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These days, I suspect there are not many users running systems with a |
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hardware clock in local time, and a separate /usr filesystem, and no |
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initramfs to mount /usr early. |
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I created a PR to adjust the logic in timezone-data to promote |
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symlinks for new installs, while keeping regular files in place for |
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existing users. |
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https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo/pull/20050 |
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If we added some logic to detect if /usr is a separate filesystem, we |
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could possibly be even more aggressive about this. But I'm not sure I |
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want to rock the boat that much in one commit. |
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