Hi all.
With no RTC, I'd gotten quite tired of systemd saying that the system's been up for forty four years and the scattered log entries + files from 1970. NTPd was already configured perfectly, but it never ended up setting the time until most other services had started and started logging with bogus dates. Gah. I did a quick Google search to see if I could hold all systemd services from running (except ntpd's dependencies) until NTP had completed.... Even then, that'd still mean that systemd and a few selected services would have been running for 44 years... I'd still have log entries and files from 1970.
I ended up coming up with a small shell script which I execute as my init. It enables a network interface using dhcpcd, runs ntpd, leaves no trace it was ever there (except for an optional log) and calls `/sbin/init`. I'm quite pleased with it, except the fact that I'm not just using `init=/usr/bin/init` (semi-tacky IMO). Aside from that, it's as it there's an RTC. One issue I'm aware of are that devices like USB wifi adapters won't be able to be used. Also, it doesn't officially support setups where a DHCP server isn't present (you'd have to rely on dhcpcd's fallback profile).
I decided it's about time to put it in the AUR, but I was just wondering what y'all think of this solution, and how/if others have tackled this problem?
EDIT: With a bit of searching on the forums, I found a pretty-much-identical approach