Gentoo does not create an /etc/localtime symlink that points to a timezone file in /usr/share/zoneinfo. I came across an explanation for this behavior in Gentoo bug #110038, the symlink is not being created in order to support legacy users that have /usr on a separate partition. Here are some useful links to support the cause: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/TheCaseForTheUsrMerge/ and https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/UsrMove With the growing popularity of modern software like systems that assumes /usr is on the same partition is / I feel that this “bug” has newfound relevance and needs to be revisited. CentOS: [root@centos ~]# ls -l /etc/localtime lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 30 Jan 18 04:21 /etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Eastern Ubuntu: vitaliy@ubuntu:~$ sudo ls -l /etc/localtime lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 30 Jan 18 11:49 /etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Eastern I am not saying that we should follow everything CentOS or Ubuntu does but the current state of things breaks modern software. gentoo ~ # /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-timedated /etc/localtime should be a symbolic link to a timezone data file in /usr/share/zoneinfo/. Reproducible: Always
Nothing stops you from symlinking instead of copying. In fact, `emerge --config sys-libs/timezone-data' (if you choose to even run it) actually leaves your symlink in place if you have one already. Is this bug report merely about a documentation change (see URL)? If you want to bring about a global change, a bug report is not enough: please bring this up on the gentoo-dev@ mailing list instead.
