Description of problem: I'm 99% sure this is due to redhat-config-date, but not 100%. My original "clock" had ARC "no" or "false", not "true". Now it's $ cat /etc/sysconfig/clock ZONE="Europe/Rome" UTC=true ARC=true $ This causes problems in hwclock invocation at startup and shutdown because --arc is used which is not supported by hwclock. + '[' -f /etc/sysconfig/clock ']' + . /etc/sysconfig/clock ++ ZONE=Europe/Rome ++ UTC=true ++ ARC=true + '[' '' = GMT ']' + '[' '' = ARC ']' + CLOCKDEF= + CLOCKFLAGS= --hctosys + CLOCKFLAGS= --hctosys --utc + CLOCKDEF= (utc) + CLOCKFLAGS= --hctosys --utc --arc + CLOCKDEF= (utc) (arc) + /sbin/hwclock --hctosys --utc --arc /sbin/hwclock: unrecognized option `--arc' hwclock - query and set the hardware clock (RTC) Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): redhat-config-date-1.5.7-3 checked changelog for beta4 and didn't see anything related to this bug, so I assume it's still there. How reproducible: Run redhat-config-date, don't know exactly the necessary steps. I discovered this sometime after I used the app and linked problem to it looking at "clock" file mod date and rpm install date.
According to 'man hwclock', '--arc' is a valid option. Also, according to Bill Nottingham in bug #72149, ARC is a true/false field, so I believe that the /etc/sysconfig/clock file that redhat-config-date has written is correct. Changing the component to util-linux, which is the package that hwclock is from.
I would guess the real problem is that redhat-config-date interpreted the original "ARC=no" line as meaning "ARC=true", and rewrote the clock file that way...? Since /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit really expects ARC usage to come by the CLOCKMODE=ARC setting rather than ARC=true, redhat-config-date should probably make sure that it only pays attention to $CLOCKMODE. hwclock probably only has (and can have) a --arch option when built on the Alpha. This is one of those "not supposed to happen" situations that did.
Should be fixed with redhat-config-date-1.5.9.
*** Bug 83383 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Fix confirmed with redhat-config-date-1.5.9-4.