Thanks, Daniel. I had tried: $ sudo ntpd -qg && sudo hwclock --systohc
Just to exclude the possibility that the hwclock couldn't be read because it didn't have a time or the time was way off. Now I understand the issue: The hwclock has the correct time, but it can't be read during boot so the system clock has no idea what time it is after boot. I'm on Parabola (Arch fork), so there's no /sbin--only /usr/bin. Here are the pastes you requested: bruno@T400 ~ $ date Wed Dec 31 19:01:42 EST 1969 bruno@T400 ~ $ sudo /usr/bin/hwclock -r hwclock: ioctl(RTC_RD_TIME) to /dev/rtc to read the time failed: Invalid argument bruno@T400 ~ $ sudo /usr/bin/hwclock --directisa -r Fri 29 Jan 2016 08:40:06 AM EST .048662 seconds So, indeed, the hwclock CAN be read with the --directisa argument. I retried the generic instructions here (http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problems_with_hwclock) and made sure both /usr/bin/hwclock.dist AND the /usr/bin/hwclock script were executable. Still no joy. Arch linux (and therefore also Parabola) uses systemd, so I can't stick the --directisa in an init script (alas). What exactly is trying to read the hwclock--is it the kernel itself or systemd? Whichever one it is, it is obviously not doing it via a call to the hwclock command, otherwise the "generic instructions" would have worked.
