• From: Jakarta, or somewhere else
  • Registered: 2009-03-17
  • Posts: 198

Topic: [Partly solved. Is there a GUI?] Changing time zone? Via Openbox menu?

I couldn't find how to change the time zone, either through the Openbox menu, or by entering settings in dmenu (Alt+F3) and looking through the choices. Have I missed something?

Googling, I found a method that worked. As root in a terminal, run:

dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

This gave me a terminal based menu for selecting a time zone. Not fancy, but it worked.

Now, how can a root terminal command like this be added to the Openbox menu? I thought gksudo might do it, but when I tried running "gksudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata" in a terminal, I got an error:

(gksudo:4978): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_str_has_prefix: assertion `str != NULL' failed

Last edited by Chriswaterguy (2010-09-15 09:19:24)

Learning Linux slowly because I'm busy with Appropedia

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  • pvsage
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  • From: Section Six
  • Registered: 2009-10-18
  • Posts: 6,013

Re: [Partly solved. Is there a GUI?] Changing time zone? Via Openbox menu?

You said this was a CLI menu; gksudo is for GUI.  Did you try `sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata`?

while ( ! ( succeed = try() ) );
  • wuy
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  • Registered: 2009-02-05
  • Posts: 74

Re: [Partly solved. Is there a GUI?] Changing time zone? Via Openbox menu?

Probably you will have to edit /etc/sudoers so it won't ask for a password

sudo visudo

then add this line in the end

yourusername ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/dpkg
  • From: California, USA
  • Registered: 2008-11-29
  • Posts: 8,647

Re: [Partly solved. Is there a GUI?] Changing time zone? Via Openbox menu?

Try using this as the command:

gksudo "terminator -x dpkg-reconfigure tzdata"
Note: ** Please read before posting **

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  • From: Jakarta, or somewhere else
  • Registered: 2009-03-17
  • Posts: 198

Re: [Partly solved. Is there a GUI?] Changing time zone? Via Openbox menu?

anonymous wrote:

Try using this as the command:

gksudo "terminator -x dpkg-reconfigure tzdata"

Thanks, that works.

Personally I like wterm instead of terminator (less than a quarter of the RAM usage, though I admit that's still only about an 8MB saving). So for me the command is:

gksudo "wterm -e dpkg-reconfigure tzdata"

Btw, is there a GUI solution in Statler Xfce? I tried xfce4-settings-editor and xfce4-settings-manager but they don't seem to do date and time. I found a web reference to "system-config-date" for Xfce but that's not in the Debian Squeeze repos.

Learning Linux slowly because I'm busy with Appropedia

Chriswaterguy's Website

  • From: California, USA
  • Registered: 2008-11-29
  • Posts: 8,647

Re: [Partly solved. Is there a GUI?] Changing time zone? Via Openbox menu?

Afaik the GUI for changing time/date is time-admin. However you have to install gnome-system-tools which has a lot of (Gnome) dependencies.

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  • dubois
  • The Old Codger
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  • From: Austin, Texas
  • Registered: 2010-09-03
  • Posts: 2,193

Re: [Partly solved. Is there a GUI?] Changing time zone? Via Openbox menu?

Chriswaterguy if you are still looking for an answer regarding changing timezones in xfce I wonder if this is something that helps?

I know you originally asked about openbox but you did mention xfce a bit later in your topic...  smile

And on the other hand perhaps not.  I had used xfce-version-systems for several years that it was a reflex when I saw this to just downloaded it.  The xfce in crunchbang is configured different.  Way different.  My apologies for steering you wrong.

Last edited by dubois (2010-09-18 18:44:53)

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