On second thought, reopening this bug as a wishlist to add a note to the Debconf template to explain the inverted nature of the Etc/GMT offsets.
-- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to tzdata in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1325949 Title: Add note to Debconf template about unintuitive inverted Etc/GMT offsets Status in tzdata package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Status in tzdata package in Debian: New Bug description: Looks like GMT[+-}<number> timezones have signs swapped. My local timezone is Europe/Tallinn When timezone is set to "Europe/Tallinn", everything is ok: # dpkg-reconfigure tzdata -> Europe/Tallinn # date Tue Jun 3 14:34:21 EEST 2014 # date +%z +0300 # date -u Tue Jun 3 11:34:59 UTC 2014 I need to set timezone to GMT+2, to avoid dailight savings time. When I set timezone to "GMT+2", things fall apart. Timezone is shown GMT+2/GMT-2. Clock is set to GMT-2. # dpkg-reconfigure tzdata -> Etc/GMT+2 # date Tue Jun 3 09:36:21 GMT+2 2014 # date +%z -0200 # date -u Tue Jun 3 11:37:43 UTC 2014 When I set timezone to "GMT-2", then it's turned around. Timezone is shown GMT-2/GMT+2. Clock is set to GMT+2. #dpkg-reconfigure tzdata -> Etc/GMT-2 # date Tue Jun 3 13:39:35 GMT-2 2014 # date +%z +0200 # date -u Tue Jun 3 11:39:56 UTC 2014 # lsb_release -rd Description: Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS Release: 12.04 # apt-cache policy tzdata tzdata: Installed: 2014c-0ubuntu0.12.04 Candidate: 2014c-0ubuntu0.12.04 Version table: *** 2014c-0ubuntu0.12.04 0 500 http://ee.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates/main amd64 Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status 2012e-0ubuntu0.12.04.1 0 500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-security/main amd64 Packages 2012b-1 0 500 http://ee.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main amd64 Packages # apt-get update # apt-get upgrade Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tzdata/+bug/1325949/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages Post to : touch-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
