[SOLVED] /etc/localtime not found

Message

not_cool · Post by **not_cool** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 3:49 am

Hi! I am still in the process of installing Gentoo, and am currently trying to set the local timezone. The installation guide says to copy the timezone from /usr/share/zoneinfo/ to /etc/localtime. But when I try to do: "cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/America /etc/localtime", I get the error: "cp: omitting directory '/usr/share/zoneinfo/America'" I try to change to the /etc/localtime directory and get an error saying that it is not a directory.

Thanks for all the help!

jmbsvicetto · Post by **jmbsvicetto** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 3:55 am

Hi.

You don't have to copy the file, actually you have to create a symlink. Look at the output of

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# ls -l /usr/share/zoneinfo/

You should determine what is your time zone. If you're in the US, it should be /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/*. In my case it's

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atl64 atlantis # ls -l /etc/localtime
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 37 2005-04-23 20:33 /etc/localtime -> ../usr/share/zoneinfo/Atlantic/Azores
atl64 atlantis #

When you know what's your time zone, you should do the following

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# cd /etc
# ln -l ../usr/share/zoneinfo/* localtime

kucrut · Post by **kucrut** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 3:57 am

shouldnt you just link your timezone to /etc/localtime ? mine is Africa/Cairo, so i did:

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ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Africa/Cairo /etc/localtime

EDiT: ah jmbsvicetto, you beat me to it

not_cool · Post by **not_cool** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 3:59 am

Solved! Thanks!

jmbsvicetto · Post by **jmbsvicetto** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 4:10 am

@not_cool: If you've solved your problem, please add [solved] to the title of the thread (edit first post).

@kucrut: It was a close call!

I would just point your attention to the preferred syntax - you should use a relative path to assure that you're referencing the same file even if your disk partitions were mounted on another system.

good ole flopp · Post by **good ole flopp** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 12:43 am

i'm a gent-n00b first time installing gentoo on my poweredge 2400 and i ran into this problem too.
i think the misunderstanding comes from the gentoo handbook using GMT as their example, and not being very descriptive.

i had the same problem as the original poster, by following the gentoo handbook recommendations my cp command came back with an error.
i tried using the ln commands recomended by the other posters and they fell flat too.

first let me say that the PST8PDT doesn't work for whatever reason, it seemed a natural choice for me (san francisco).
there was an entry for me in America that came close though, Los_Angeles.
my successful timezone changing statement was:

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# cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Los_Angeles /etc/localtime

i dont know why that worked and PST8PDT didn't, i'm also not sure why the gentoo handbook left out these few extra details about how this part of the install should go, but whatever