Ubuntu Desktop Unit Consistency (LP: #369525)

[Remco]

On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 4:58 AM, Mackenzie Morgan <macoafi at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sunday 31 May 2009 9:12:37 pm Christopher Chan wrote:
>> Disk storage is expressed in multiples of 1024 under any
>> operating system.
>
> Are you sure?  Usually I see Windows users in #ubuntu complaining that Ubuntu
> only sees 112GB of their 120GB drive while Windows sees all 120GB.

Take a look at the properties of a file in Nautilus. It will tell you
a file is x MB, and y bytes.

I have a file here of "701.2 MB", which is "735270912 bytes". Now, if
it really *were* 701.2 MB, then it would be 701200000 bytes. So that's
clearly base 2, which should be MiB.

> This then
> results in an explanation that "no no, see Ubuntu says GiB, not GB, and that
> little i in there means it's Gibibytes which the IEEE has decided means 1024-
> based, not 1000-based which is Gigabytes and the way the manufacturer measures
> so that they can give you fewer Gibibytes and pretend it's just as many."

While that may be true, the most useful thing about base 10 is that
normal humans can actually understand it. We cannot calculate using a
binary number system. Base 2 is not useful for anything, except
sometimes in programming.

Remco