ml>> my first question is how does the OS know what to
 ml>> set gmttime to? AFAIK, it cannot without some other
 ml>> setting like TZ and without being told if the BIOS
 ml>> clock is running localtime or gmttime...

 MK> You must be thinking of other OS's, not anything UNIXie.

nope... every single one of my linux installs has asked me what timezone
the machine is located in, if daylight savings is to be used and if the
clock is UTC or local time... based on these questions, certain settings
are stored and maintained by the system and everything else, like the ...

 MK> The Perl POSIX module

gets those settings by simply querying the OS which responds with the
answers you gave it...

 MK> seems to be able to figure it out, or at least running on
 MK> a Linux system.  I tried it on both a UTC and a PST set
 MK> machine and it adjusted itself accordingly.

as well it should... you had to tell the machine's OS what timezone it was
in when you chose to use UTC or PST...

)\/(ark