On 2005-02-15, Keean Schupke
Linux systems can (and a lot do) have their system type (in the hardware clock) set to GMT. Localtime is calculated from the timezone when you call the gettimeofday function. This in IMHO is much better than windows broken system of actualy moving the clock forwards and back for daylight-savings.
This is standard for all Unices, not Linux specific. If anything, Linux is unusual in that it caters to the other case of keeping the hardware clock in the local timezone, to ease interoperability with Windows (& DOS) on dual-boot systems.
This does mean that the above assumption could be wrong on linux, where the default with no timezone could be GMT.
A system without a default timezone set is exceedingly rare -- all installations force you to set one (which can be overriden on a per-process basis by the environment). -- Aaron Denney -><-