From: Sebastian Leske <sleske@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de>
Reply-To: Sebastian.Leske@bigfoot.de
To: submit@bugs.debian.org
Subject: manpage/info-file for 'date' should explain difference between hardware clock and system clock
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 17:34:23 +0100
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Package: shellutils
Version: 2.0-4
Severity: wishlist

If you are not familiar with the fact that Linux on i386 has *two* clocks
(the system clock maintained by the kernel and the hardware clock in a
chip on your motherboard), the documentation for the 'date' command is
somewhat confusing. The term 'system clock' is used throughout these
documents, but without explaining what it refers to.

IMHO it would therefore be a good idea to include a short remark
explaining what is meant by 'system clock'. 

Maybe you could insert something like the following:
(just a proposal)
into the manpage date (1)

old:
DESCRIPTION
       Display  the  current time in the given FORMAT, or set the
       system date. 
new:
DESCRIPTION
       Display  the  current time in the given FORMAT, or set the
       system date as maintained by the kernel. This command does not
       affect the hardware clock  (or 'bios' clock); use the hwclock
       command for doing that.

and add under 'SEE ALSO':
SEE ALSO
      [...]
       hwclock (8)  for manipulating the hardware ('bios') clock

and equivalent changes in the info pages.