Change default time zone offset?

[jt3]

A bit off the wall, but I suspect normally taken care of by broadband connection and time server: The default Knoppix time zone offset seems to be US EST, though I would have thought it GMT. Anyhow, Knoppix seems to apply a three hour negative offset to my selection of US PST relative to the BIOS-set clock. I could fix this by selecting US EST for the time zone, but there must be some way of adjusting the default value, as I can't believe Deutschland uses US EST as a default.

Actually, I'm surprised that such an offset is applied to the clock, rather than using the time zone for inet communications. Would welcome any explanations, guidance. Very new to Knoppix, or any Linux, for that matter.

Thanks