Index: plasma-desktop-5.8.5/kcms/dateandtime/helper.cpp
===================================================================
--- plasma-desktop-5.8.5.orig/kcms/dateandtime/helper.cpp
+++ plasma-desktop-5.8.5/kcms/dateandtime/helper.cpp
@@ -181,7 +181,12 @@ int ClockHelper::tz( const QString& sele
 
     val = selectedzone;
 #else
-    QString tz = "/usr/share/zoneinfo/" + selectedzone;
+    QString tzdir = QString::fromLocal8Bit(qgetenv("TZDIR"));
+    QString tz = tzdir + "/" + selectedzone;
+    if (tzdir.isEmpty()) {
+      // Standard Linux path
+      tz = "/usr/share/zoneinfo/" + selectedzone;
+    }
 
     if (QFile::exists(tz)) { // make sure the new TZ really exists
         QFile::remove(QStringLiteral("/etc/localtime"));