Okay. I am prepared to get schooled here. But this is what I did.
I checked the files in /usr/share/zoneinfo.
I found the zone that I wanted (EST5EDT) and looked at the file (cat /usr/share/zoneinfo/EST5EDT) .
I then took the second line (EST5EDT,M3.2.0,M11.1.0) and did the following:
uci set system.@system[0].timezone=EST5EDT,M3.2.0,M11.1.0
uci commit
Of course this is a fancy way of modifying the /etc/config/system file and adding:
config system
option timezone 'EST5EDT,M3.2.0,M11.1.0'
Then I created an /etc/TZ file by doing:
echo "EST5EDT,M3.2.0,M11.1.0" /etc/TZ
Then I added the following line to /root/.profile:
export TZ=$(cat /etc/TZ)
rebooting the lanturtle then everything looked good.
I have worked off an on with *NIX for a very long time (think SunOS 1.0) but I don't consider myself anything other than a "novice".
The lanturtle uses the openwrt distro so reviewing the openwrt documentation will help a lot with anyone digging around in the lanturtle.