Re: setting the system clock before launching operating system
Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote: On Sat 2008-09-13 00:52:47 -0400, Arthur Marsh wrote: Vesa Jääskeläinen wrote, on 2008-09-13 00:13: Geoff Karl wrote: I would like to be able to set the clock to a particular time automatically before launching an operating system. Anyone have any ideas if this can be done during the boot loader process? Yes it can be done. But why? Some machines (e.g. a Compaq Armada 1750) don't have the option to set the time via BIOS or set-up boot floppy. When the time had been lost, I'd have start-up problems with fsck checking when the file system had last been checked. The same is true for many older PowerPC machines whose mainboard batteries have begun to fail. Being able to automate the bootloader to say look, if the hardware clock thinks it is 1904 (or 1900, or 1970, or anytime before the turn of the century) it is probably wrong; set it to at least 2008 at every boot would be pretty useful. Well... replace the battery ;) This is especially useful on 32-bit architectures with a default hardware epoch date so far in the past that crappier NTP implementations think that it's actually in the future. I've dealt with this at the OS level (for various OSes) on older PowerPC machines, and it's doable, but a pain. Being able to guarantee that no matter what OS you're booting, the initial clock will be at least set to time X would be pretty handy. ...and update your NTP software ;) Should we one day support NTP time synchronization within GRUB 2, then it would be usable. Personally I do not see need for this. I would propose that you use your OS startup script to handle this case in case you refuse to/can't replace your battery. ___ Grub-devel mailing list Grub-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
Re: setting the system clock before launching operating system
On Sun, Sep 14, 2008 at 10:44:35AM +0300, Vesa Jääskeläinen wrote: Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote: On Sat 2008-09-13 00:52:47 -0400, Arthur Marsh wrote: Vesa Jääskeläinen wrote, on 2008-09-13 00:13: Geoff Karl wrote: I would like to be able to set the clock to a particular time automatically before launching an operating system. Anyone have any ideas if this can be done during the boot loader process? Yes it can be done. But why? Some machines (e.g. a Compaq Armada 1750) don't have the option to set the time via BIOS or set-up boot floppy. When the time had been lost, I'd have start-up problems with fsck checking when the file system had last been checked. The same is true for many older PowerPC machines whose mainboard batteries have begun to fail. Being able to automate the bootloader to say look, if the hardware clock thinks it is 1904 (or 1900, or 1970, or anytime before the turn of the century) it is probably wrong; set it to at least 2008 at every boot would be pretty useful. Well... replace the battery ;) This is especially useful on 32-bit architectures with a default hardware epoch date so far in the past that crappier NTP implementations think that it's actually in the future. I've dealt with this at the OS level (for various OSes) on older PowerPC machines, and it's doable, but a pain. Being able to guarantee that no matter what OS you're booting, the initial clock will be at least set to time X would be pretty handy. ...and update your NTP software ;) Should we one day support NTP time synchronization within GRUB 2, then it would be usable. Personally I do not see need for this. I would propose that you use your OS startup script to handle this case in case you refuse to/can't replace your battery. I agree. Having ad-hoc code to workaround limitations somewhere else sucks. But if we can support it simply by having an interface to get/set the date (which we already do), and generic scripting support, why not? -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. ___ Grub-devel mailing list Grub-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
Re: setting the system clock before launching operating system
On Sat 2008-09-13 00:52:47 -0400, Arthur Marsh wrote: Vesa Jääskeläinen wrote, on 2008-09-13 00:13: Geoff Karl wrote: I would like to be able to set the clock to a particular time automatically before launching an operating system. Anyone have any ideas if this can be done during the boot loader process? Yes it can be done. But why? Some machines (e.g. a Compaq Armada 1750) don't have the option to set the time via BIOS or set-up boot floppy. When the time had been lost, I'd have start-up problems with fsck checking when the file system had last been checked. The same is true for many older PowerPC machines whose mainboard batteries have begun to fail. Being able to automate the bootloader to say look, if the hardware clock thinks it is 1904 (or 1900, or 1970, or anytime before the turn of the century) it is probably wrong; set it to at least 2008 at every boot would be pretty useful. This is especially useful on 32-bit architectures with a default hardware epoch date so far in the past that crappier NTP implementations think that it's actually in the future. I've dealt with this at the OS level (for various OSes) on older PowerPC machines, and it's doable, but a pain. Being able to guarantee that no matter what OS you're booting, the initial clock will be at least set to time X would be pretty handy. --dkg pgpccKABlEKe4.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ Grub-devel mailing list Grub-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
Re: setting the system clock before launching operating system
Geoff Karl wrote: I would like to be able to set the clock to a particular time automatically before launching an operating system. Anyone have any ideas if this can be done during the boot loader process? Yes it can be done. But why? ___ Grub-devel mailing list Grub-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
Re: setting the system clock before launching operating system
Vesa Jääskeläinen wrote, on 2008-09-13 00:13: Geoff Karl wrote: I would like to be able to set the clock to a particular time automatically before launching an operating system. Anyone have any ideas if this can be done during the boot loader process? Yes it can be done. But why? Some machines (e.g. a Compaq Armada 1750) don't have the option to set the time via BIOS or set-up boot floppy. When the time had been lost, I'd have start-up problems with fsck checking when the file system had last been checked. Being able to set the time in grub or a program directly launchable from grub would help avoid these problems. Arthur. ___ Grub-devel mailing list Grub-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
setting the system clock before launching operating system
Hi everyone. I would like to be able to set the clock to a particular time automatically before launching an operating system. Anyone have any ideas if this can be done during the boot loader process? thanks, Geoff ___ Grub-devel mailing list Grub-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
