Gordon:

Thanks for the reply.  $TZ is not set currently but I did try setting it
to US/Pacific.  This fixes the problem only for programs run in the
terminal.  Applets still show the wrong time.  I don't know where the
time zone would be set for an applet but I would have thought that it
came from the system time zone.  How is the time zone propagated in Linux?

Below are the answers to your questions.  The correct time was 16:??
hours.  I tried setting /etc/localtime to /usr/share/zoneinfo/PST8PDT
and /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Los_Angeles.  Neither make a difference.

[knute@localhost ~]$ cat /etc/sysconfig/clock
# The ZONE parameter is only evaluated by system-config-date.
# The timezone of the system is defined by the contents of /etc/localtime.
ZONE="America/Los Angeles"
UTC=false
ARC=false
[knute@localhost ~]$ date
Thu Jun  7 16:04:43 PDT 2007
[knute@localhost ~]$ echo $TZ

[knute@localhost ~]$ cat test.java
import java.util.*;

public class test {
        public static void main(String[] args) {
                System.out.println(new Date());
                System.out.println(TimeZone.getDefault().getID());
        }
}
[knute@localhost ~]$ java test
Thu Jun 07 15:05:04 GMT-08:00 2007
GMT-08:00
[knute@localhost ~]$

Also if I set the timezone on the command line -

[knute@localhost ~]$ java -Duser.timezone=US/Pacific test
Thu Jun 07 16:11:26 PDT 2007
US/Pacific
[knute@localhost ~]$

it gives the correct time and zone.

Thanks very much,

knute
email s/knute/nospam/