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I am a Buddhist, and if I cannot have a Buddhist calendar, I would at least like to have to Buddhist year, which is currently (in 2015) 2558. But due to the 2038 year problem, I'm not sure if I can do this and my system settings don't seem too happy with me changing the year to that.

So is it possible for me to change the year to a year so far ahead, and if so, how? I am running Ubuntu GNOME 15.10 with GNOME 3.18.

  • What happens if you do sudo date --set "27 Nov 2558"? – muru Nov 26 '15 at 19:51
  • Hmm. I tried it out. It doesn't seem willing to accept years over 2261. – muru Nov 26 '15 at 20:02
  • Can you confirm: Is this the Gregorian calendar, just shifted by adding 543 to the year (and not a different 'calendar')? This may be possible to support, with a simple patch. – david6 Nov 26 '15 at 20:17
  • @david6: No, different calendar. –  Nov 26 '15 at 20:30
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    date -d 01-jul-2558 shows Sat Jul 1 00:00:00 EDT 2558. Setting your system date that far ahead will engender confusion whenever your system communicates with ANY other system. It will also break every piece of software that is not year 2038 ready. – waltinator Nov 26 '15 at 20:31
  • @waltinator: So is there anyway for me at least to show me that date in the most places that it can, but not actually have that set as the actual date (I don't mind so much about other programs, I just want the main system to do it)? –  Nov 26 '15 at 20:38
  • This is how windows does it: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/globalization/locale/calendar-differences Same q no answer: https://askubuntu.com/questions/639660/how-to-get-the-traditional-buddhist-lunisolar-calendar-on-ubuntu-gnome and it has links to the same but for a Jewish calender so I would assume it can be done but has not been done yet. – Rinzwind Jul 05 '18 at 12:33
  • Linux needs to be patched to go beyond 2038: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem – WinEunuuchs2Unix Jul 06 '18 at 02:52

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The problem is not the date, which, as a number of seconds since the point in time designated as Jan 1, 1970 00:00:00 GMT in the Roman calendar, is the same for everyone whatever the religion, but how it is formatted. This is to some extent the same problem as time zones (every one has the same "epoch seconds" count, the TZ just says how it is formatted for output).

You have to find a "locale" that supports Buddhist dates (or create one). Then you PC will be compatible with the rest of the world (can still be kept synchronized by NTP servers, can exchange files with others, etc...).

PS: As proof , these locales are defined as part of UTS#35 and indeed exist in Java for some variant of the Thai locale. For Linux, you may have to roll your own for the time being.

xenoid
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  • Who would be the best person to suggest this as a feature? –  Jul 06 '18 at 09:30
  • Beats me... Theoretically, you can make your own... If you dig a bit you may find a Thai locale with Buddhist calendar for Linux, and start from that... – xenoid Jul 06 '18 at 11:36