title: Equivalent to GetTickCount() on Linux
body: <p>I'm looking for an equivalent to <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms724408%28VS.85%29.aspx" rel="noreferrer"><code>GetTickCount()</code></a> on Linux.</p>
  
  <p>Presently I am using Python's <a href="http://docs.python.org/library/time.html#time.time" rel="noreferrer"><code>time.time()</code></a> which presumably calls through to <a href="http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/online/pages/man2/gettimeofday.2.html" rel="noreferrer"><code>gettimeofday()</code></a>. My concern is that the time returned (the unix epoch), may change erratically if the clock is messed with, such as by NTP. A simple process or system wall time, that only increases positively at a constant rate would suffice.</p>
  
  <p>Does any such time function in C or Python exist?</p>