Description of problem: Is it possible to have a "location" for UTC time that doesn't specifically have a location? Does that even make sense?
If I understand your question correctly, then yes, and that zone is called "UTC". $ /usr/sbin/zdump -v /usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC /usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC Fri Dec 13 20:45:52 1901 UTC = Fri Dec 13 20:45:52 1901 UTC isdst=0 gmtoff=0 /usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC Sat Dec 14 20:45:52 1901 UTC = Sat Dec 14 20:45:52 1901 UTC isdst=0 gmtoff=0 /usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC Mon Jan 18 03:14:07 2038 UTC = Mon Jan 18 03:14:07 2038 UTC isdst=0 gmtoff=0 /usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC Tue Jan 19 03:14:07 2038 UTC = Tue Jan 19 03:14:07 2038 UTC isdst=0 gmtoff=0 (No DST transitions, offset 0.) $ date +%T\ %z; TZ=UTC date +%T\ %z 11:03:26 +0200 09:03:26 +0000
Yes. BUT when I go into my clock preferences (under GNOME) and use the pulldown for Timezone there isn't a UTC zone. Is it possible to have that added to the list? Maybe this is the wrong package?
Dunno what Gnome uses, but in system-config-time, there's a section called "non-geographical time zones". I can see UTC there. If you have problems with that, reopen the bug and reassign it to the right package, because the bug is not in tzdata.