By default my hd install of Knoppix 6.2 always sets the system clock to the wrong time (for NZ) and the time zone setting defaults to <America/NewYork>.

you can change Knoppix to your time-zone with the following command run as root

<dpkg-reconfigure tzdata>

and then choosing from the lists that come up, first your general area, e.g. <Pacific> and then appropriate city e.g. <Auckland> BUT this will be lost and reset to <America/NewYork> each time you re-boot [at least mine was]

Once you're in your correct time-zone you can then set the correct system clock time by running the command:
<date 120310422009> [that's for 10:42 on 3rd December 2009]

but again it will all be lost when you reboot and all needs to be done over again – and you need to have an accurate clock available to reset it from

SO

Is there a long term solution?
For the Time Zone problem - Find your time-zone [in the right format] from /usr/share/zoneinfo/####/#### - in my case <Pacific/Auckland> and then go to your editor [as root] and open /etc/init.d/knoppix-autoconfig and change line 357 from <KTZ="$(getbootparam tz)"> to <KTZ='Pacific/Auckland'> or whatever your own zone is. This will get you into the right time-zone each time you boot but will still not get the correct system time

For the correct time problem - I've installed the small debian package ntpdate - add your closest <####.pool.ntp.org> ntp servers to the appropriate lines of /etc/default/ntpdate – and that's it – if you're automatically connected to the net when you boot up then ntpdate will run at boot and set your system clock to the correct time and if not when you do connect to the net it will run soon after and correct the time you see in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. If all else fails you can run the command [as root]
<ntpdate nz.pool.ntp.org> [changing <nz> to whatever your nearest area pool server is] or I suppose you could write a simple script to run this command at boot time.

Has anyone found a simpler or more elegant solutions to this problem with Knoppix 6.2 as a hard drive install? I never had this problem with Knoppix 6.01 as a hard drive install.

It's a great distro but it's good to have the right time too.

Best wishes, John

PS - 02 Mar 2010 - If you have the dvd version as hard drive install you can go (as root in a terminal) to <time-admin> and change what you need to there - much more easily.