RTC hctosys disabled for 32-bit systems

[Arnd Bergmann]

On Thu, Sep 1, 2022, at 2:49 PM, Alexandre Belloni wrote:
> On 01/09/2022 13:55:19+0200, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
>> 
>> The only reliable fix I can see would be to disable
>> CONFIG_RTC_HCTOSYS_DEVICE. I think this is Alexandre's plan
>> for the long run anyway, but I don't know if there has been any
>> progress in convincing distros to turn it off.
>> 
>
> This is still my plan but systemd mandates RTC_HCTOSYS and I couldn't
> convince Lennart otherwise.

Ah, I forgot that systemd actually needs it. So I guess there is
currently no way to use systemd on 32-bit machines that are
meant to survive 2038, regardless of whether systemd and glibc are
built with a 64-bit time_t or not, right?

Is there perhaps a way to change the logic in a way that
it does not depend on the current time but instead depends
on a property of the RTC device itself, so we make systems
break immediately instead of by surprise in 2038?

As far as I remember, the workaround was only needed for
certain devices that may set the time to something after 2038
on a depleted battery, but other devices would have a better
failure case, right?

       Arnd