I understand that in the United States of America, the preferred way to
set the time zone is America/Chicago, or America/Los_Angeles.  That's
all fine, but what about Puerto Rico?  As far as as I know, Puerto Rico
is still part of the United States, and San Juan is the largest city in
Puerto Rico.  Where is America/San_Juan?  Maybe the problem is that
there is a San Juan in almost every Latin American country.  If we
decide to go with Region/City, then we have to keep it consistent.

Also, since Puerto Rico is in the United States, and is in the Atlantic
time zone, there should be a US/Atlantic time zone.

Another inconsistency.  Maybe needs a separate bug report.  I see
America/Aruba and America/Curacao.  Where is America/Bonaire?

Then there is the question of America/Detroit.  I travel to the East
Coast of the US.  Do I pick America/Detroit or America/New_York?  What's
the difference and how would I know?  Should I pick America/Detroit only
when I am in Detroit, or when I am in Michigan, or on the East Coast?

I personally think that the whole Region/City is garbage.  If I live in
Houson, Texas, why do I have to pick Chicago (1000 miles away)?  After
all, Denver is only 880 miles away.  How am I even supposed to know that
Chicago is in the Central time zone and not Eastern?  I like to old
system where I just pick the time zone US/Central, but I am offended
that the system now changes it to America/Chicago.

And speaking of America/Denver...  Which Denver is it?  There are eight
Denvers in the United States.

I know that some of this has been discussed in the past.  And I know the
reply will have something to do with upstream.  I feel my complaints are
legitimate; although some more than others.

Thanks,

Marc

Marc F. Clemente wrote:

Only matters if you care about history and would like to be able to
get correct DST values for Detroit when using dates in eg, the 1940s.

The "northamerica" file in the tzdata source is amusing reading.

It's unfortunate that tzdata's postinst does that. It does not
match common usage in the US which is to use the US/Eastern,
US/Pacific, etc zones. The Debian Installer's tzsetup writes
/etc/timezone using those names, but tzdata then comes along and
rewrites it to use the confusing city names.