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tzwatch

Prints the time in several time zones at once, in a terminal

What it does

Prints the current date and time in a list of time zones you configure, in the terminal, and can keep updating in place. Zones are named the way the system names them, so anything in the tz database works.

Why you would want it

The console equivalent of twclock, and the one that works over SSH to a remote station. Scheduling a sked, working a net that meets at a local time somewhere else, or just keeping UTC visible in a tmux pane -- all of which want text, not a window.

Before it will work

The tz database, which every Debian-family system already has.

How it installs

  • apt: tzwatch

Known problems

It reads zone names, so a mistyped one is simply not found rather than silently interpreted as UTC. Daylight-saving transitions are handled by the tz database rather than by this program, which means they are correct and also means an out-of-date tzdata gives confidently wrong answers for the countries that changed their rules this year.

Keeping it current

  • probe: apt policy
  • strategy: apt_upgrade

Where to get help with the software itself

Debian's package declares no upstream Homepage -- this is a small utility maintained through the distribution rather than by a live project, so the package tracker is the honest pointer. Recorded rather than invented.

Source: catalog/packages/tzwatch.yaml