Iâm a bit confused about my new Linux computer showing time in 24-hour format. I donât think in â1700 hoursâ notation, however, I think in âam/pmâ notation. How can I switch how my Ubuntu Linux system shows the current time?
While tracking time on a 12-hour clock that switches back to the beginning at the moment of the princeps meridiem has been around for thousands of years, lots of people have found it more efficient â and more accurate â to denote time based on a 24-hour clock. We wouldnât meet at 7pm for dinner, weâd meet at 19oo hours instead. Most military organizations use this notation, with some additional flair like âzero-dark thirtyâ to denote, well, what time does that denote? Actually, the 24-hour clock starts with hour zero, so that would be 0:30, or 30 minutes after midnight.
Like all modern operating systems, Linux can work either with a 12-hour am/pm time display or a 24-hour time display. The trick is to know where to adjust it to your preference, and thatâs what Iâll cover in this tutorial.
Before we get there, however, do you know what am and pm stand for? Itâs Latin: ante meridiem (literally, âbefore the point that the sun is directly overheadâ) and post meridiem (literally, âafter the point that the sun is directly overheadâ). Earlier I referenced princeps meridiem, which you can now puzzle out to be âthe point when the sun is directly overheadâ, or high noon. The Am/Pm notion wasnât widely adopted until the 1600s. Prior to that they really didnât much know what time it was, they just watched the sun and tried to figure out if it was closer to morning or evening.
Okay, back to our task!
TIME DISPLAY FORMAT IN LINUX
The easiest way to see what time display format is being used on your Ubuntu Linux system is to glance at the very top bar. If youâre in 24-hour notation, youâll see something like this of an afternoon:
13:58 is also known as 1:58 pm, of course. But how to fix it? Well, you can try clicking on the time itself, but that shows notifications and a calendar:
Helpful except thereâs no settings shortcut to get to the right spot to fix the time display format. Instead, go to Settings from the All Apps view on your Linux system.
UBUNTU LINUX: SETTINGS: DATE & TIME
Go down the left side until you find âDate & Timeâ and click on it. Hereâs what youâll see:
In this instance, you can see that the system is using the network for date & time, but not for the current timezone, which is why Iâm in Kansas City, Missouri â which is the same timezone as Chicago, Illinois â but my computer thinks Iâm still on British Standard Time in London, England. Thatâs pretty far off!
Before we fix the timezone, however, letâs fix that time format. On the bottom, it denotes â24-hourâ. Click on that and youâll see the other format possibility:
Aha! Choose âAM/PMâ and the time will be displayed in the format you desire.
Notice on the third line, greyed out, it now shows 2:03 PM as desired.
CHOOSE YOUR CORRECT TIMEZONE IN LINUX
But what about the timezone problem? One solution is to enable âAutomatic Time Zoneâ and give your computer a minute or so to figure it out, but itâs more fun to click on the current Time Zone and choose another one from the resultant map:
You can see I have clicked at the right spot and chosen Chicago, United States, where itâs now 8:04 AM, not 2:04 PM. đ
Close the window and youâre all set. In fact, why not enable Automatic Time Zone now that everythingâs as you desire?
Mission accomplished. Now, did you want to learn more about why we have 24 hours in a day, not 15 or 47? đ
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Thatâs how it should work, but in my case I have it set for AM/PM, but it is still displaying the time as 16.05.
PS I am not leaving my main email because I donât share it with websites, so it is kind of a shame I canât leave a snapshot here to prove my example. But your example does not always work.