GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 354661
time-admin fails to lookup "Europe/Helsinki" as time zone value
Last modified: 2009-08-19 06:45:22 UTC
Please describe the problem: If Europe/Helsinki is set as time zone, time-admin sets the value to Europe/Mariehamn for some reason when program is launched on second time. Steps to reproduce: 1. Launch time-admin and set time zone as Europe/Helsinki 2. Close time-admin 3. Launch time-admin again and view time zone value Actual results: Time zone value is set to Europe/Mariehamn Expected results: Time zone value should be Europe/Helsinki Does this happen every time? Yes. Other information:
The issue is fixed in system-tools-backends HEAD, thanks for the bug report!
*** Bug 366478 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
This bug is back, in my case: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=366478
Sorry, I forgot to post my current info: Gnome 2.24.1 Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex $ apt-cache policy gnome-system-tools gnome-about gnome-system-tools: Installed: 2.22.1-0ubuntu1 Candidate: 2.22.1-0ubuntu1 gnome-about: Installed: 1:2.24.1-0ubuntu1 Candidate: 1:2.24.1-0ubuntu1
Reopening, Savvas can still reproduce this.
Created attachment 124544 [details] [review] Proposed patch Here's a patch. The problem is that there are two zoneinfo's that are identical, but system-tools-backend just picks the first one in /usr/share/zoneinfo/zone.tab that matches. So, for Mariehamn and Helsinki, Mariehamn comes first, and you always get Mariehamn for both. For Belgrade and Sarajevo (from bug 366478), Sarajevo is first. This used to be fixed by checking if /etc/localetime is a symbolic link, and using the zoneinfo it points to. But nowadays, /etc/localetime is a copy, not a link. So, I've added a new backend target for timezones (debian-4.0) that just checks /etc/timezone and calls it a day. According to http://wiki.debian.org/TimeZoneChanges, Etch and later use /etc/timezone as the preferred location for that info. Etch is Debian 4.0. According to https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tzdata/+bug/209429/comments/16, Ubuntu Gutsy and later do the same thing. So my patch changes the backend for debian-4.0 (Etch) and ubuntu-7.04 (Feisty) and up. This patch is against system-tools-backends 2.6.0 in Ubuntu Hardy, but I assume it will mostly apply, as it is small.
I should have said "Ubuntu *Edgy* and later do the same thing".
Michael, is the patch tested? I was assuming in launchpad about this (last comments #6, #8): https://bugs.launchpad.net/gst/+bug/43644 So it seems to be system-tools-backend fault then?
Yes, it's tested by me, on Ubuntu Hardy. And thanks for reminding me that the fault is in system-tools-backend. I'll switch the component of this bug away from time-admin.
From what I see, there's a similar patch in debian, but it doesn't include the new section debian-4.0 you have applied. File debian/patches/01_debian_4.0patch has "debian-3.0" for debian-4.0 and -5.0 and -testing. I've notified Carlos Garnacho about this patch and comments, hopefully it will be included in time!
Carlos has replied, unfortunately g-s-t and s-t-b projects need a new maintainer: http://blogs.gnome.org/carlosg/2008/02/01/two-new-children-in-cookieville/ He has kindly offered guidance. If anyone wants to volunteer to take care of g-s-t, please contact him: carlosg at gnome There's an IRC channel as well: irc.gnome.org #gst irc://irc.gnome.org/gst
I have tested the patch on ubuntu 9.04 with minimal changes it works, thanks Michael!! I can now see "Europe/Belgrade" instead of the false "Europe/Sarajevo": http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/7452/screenshottimeanddatese.png https://bugs.launchpad.net/gst/+bug/43644/comments/10
*** Bug 587769 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
We have to commit this, but the system-tools-backends are hosted on freedesktop.org where I have not access. I'll try to see what I can do.
@Milan Bouchet-Valat: the page http://system-tools-backends.freedesktop.org/contact.html says to contact carlosg, have you been in touch with him?
I have, but when it comes to those old projects, he isn't very quick to answer. I guess I'll have to ping him on IRC... ;-) Don't worry, there's still a chance it can land in the next Ubuntu release.
Eventually pushed as d3ce5e5f0f210a2f9c868526257a0e1444f504a2! I hope to release it soon. Thanks, and I hope that will work for newer Debian releases - else they'll come and discuss when they need to update their patch. ;-)
About debian, as far as I can see, they removed all the version-dependent logic: http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/s/system-tools-backends/current/changelog#versionversion2.6.0-6 system-tools-backends (2.6.0-6) unstable; urgency=low * 01_debian_4.0.patch: completely remove all the brain-dead version logic. The Debian version corresponds to the version the package is shipped in, that’s all. There is also a patch available to fix it: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=526940