Re: {persistence,date} problems

On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 07:58:23 -0700 (PDT)
sorin <s_gherman_at_yahoo.com> wrote:
> Shouldn't all settings (in calendar, todo, etc) be persistent between
> sessions? I accidentally had my battery drained out and after a
> recharge everything was wiped out :(( . I think they definitelly
> should be persistent.

Most of them _should_ be, yes...

> Even the date can be persistent, in the sense that after a complete
> restart it will default to the last known date, not to the ancient Jan
> 1st, '70.

The date is somewhat complicated... especially a battery drain is
critical since it wipes out the real time clock (RTC) of the SA1110. And
you cannot really store the date/time in flash since it would require to
update it frequently and thus burn out your flash :(

> Second problem I had I think it's a also a "familiar" problem, not a
> only gpe one. Actually there are several sub-problems:
> 1. (familiar problem, I guess): the standard linux date utility
> doesn't work for me when I try to set the date. Even the obvious:
> > date -s "`date`"
> doesn't work, it complains about an invalid date format. I guess I am
> missing something...

This is a problem with the busybox date command. It does not understand
as many formats as the GNU equivalent does. Try somthine like:

        date DDMMhhmmYYYY

where
        DD = day of month (two digits)
        MM = month
        hh = hour
        mm = minute
        YYYY = year (four digits)

> 2. When I tried to set it manually using the gpe time _and_date
> applet, save, and reopened the applet, the year has indeed changed,
> but not the month or the day or the time.

Bug in gpe-config, yes.

> 3. Setting thinds up in the gpe time _and_date applet doesn't have any
> effect on the system date: "date" shows still Jan 1st, '70.

Also gpe-config bug.

> Thanks,
> /sorin gherman
CU
  nils faerber

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