This patch is used on openSUSE 12.2 or newer. Nowadays, /etc/localtime is by default a symbolic link to a zone file in /usr/share/zoneinfo. By default, zic tries the following approaches to create /etc/localtime: 1. Hard link 2. Symbolic link 3. File copy This patch changes the logic slightly: keep using symbolic links if /etc/localtime is already one. If it isn't, use the default order as listed above. Index: timezone-2015d/zic.c =================================================================== --- timezone-2015d.orig/zic.c +++ timezone-2015d/zic.c @@ -104,7 +104,7 @@ static int addtype(zic_t, char const *, static void leapadd(zic_t, bool, int, int); static void adjleap(void); static void associate(void); -static void dolink(const char * fromfield, const char * tofield); +static void dolink(const char * fromfield, const char * tofield, int defaultsymlink); static char ** getfields(char * buf); static zic_t gethms(const char * string, const char * errstring, bool); @@ -629,7 +629,7 @@ _("%s: More than one -L option specified */ for (i = 0; i < nlinks; ++i) { eat(links[i].l_filename, links[i].l_linenum); - dolink(links[i].l_from, links[i].l_to); + dolink(links[i].l_from, links[i].l_to, false); if (noise) for (j = 0; j < nlinks; ++j) if (strcmp(links[i].l_to, @@ -638,11 +638,11 @@ _("%s: More than one -L option specified } if (lcltime != NULL) { eat(_("command line"), 1); - dolink(lcltime, TZDEFAULT); + dolink(lcltime, TZDEFAULT, true); } if (psxrules != NULL) { eat(_("command line"), 1); - dolink(psxrules, TZDEFRULES); + dolink(psxrules, TZDEFRULES, false); } if (warnings && (ferror(stderr) || fclose(stderr) != 0)) return EXIT_FAILURE; @@ -735,14 +735,17 @@ relname(char const *dir, char const *bas } static void -dolink(const char *const fromfield, const char *const tofield) +dolink(const char *const fromfield, const char *const tofield, int defaultsymlink) { + struct stat st; register char * fromname; register char * toname; register int fromisdir; fromname = relname(directory, fromfield); toname = relname(directory, tofield); + if (lstat(fromname, &st) == 0 && S_ISLNK(st.st_mode)) + defaultsymlink = true; /* ** We get to be careful here since ** there's a fair chance of root running us. @@ -756,14 +759,14 @@ dolink(const char *const fromfield, cons } if (itsdir(toname) <= 0) remove(toname); - if (link(fromname, toname) != 0) { + if (defaultsymlink || link(fromname, toname) != 0) { int result; if (! mkdirs(toname)) exit(EXIT_FAILURE); - - result = link(fromname, toname); - if (result != 0) { + if (!defaultsymlink) + result = link(fromname, toname); + if ((defaultsymlink || (!defaultsymlink && result != 0))) { const char *s = fromname; const char *t; char *p;