Ubuntu Desktop Unit Consistency (LP: #369525)
Christopher Chan
christopher.chan at bradbury.edu.hk
Tue Jun 2 06:57:14 UTC 2009
Neal McBurnett wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 02, 2009 at 10:59:10AM +0800, Christopher Chan wrote:
>
>> Neal McBurnett wrote:
>>
>>> I agree. More details and discussion are at this ifconfig bug report,
>>> which came to the same conclusion:
>>>
>>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/net-tools/+bug/240073
>>>
>>>
>> The interface speed in base10 yes. The number of bytes transferred, NO,
>> because that is and has always been base2. You are barking up the wrong
>> tree with regard to ifconfig's report on RX and TX bytes. Your beloved
>> bit_rate page is only for interface speed. So a 100mbit/s interface can
>> be reported as 12.5MB/s interface (100,000,000bits/8 = 12,500,000bytes)
>> which is still base10 but the amount of bytes transferred has to be
>> base2 because that is how blinking file sizes are calculated. The size
>> of a file has always been base2 and so this nonsense of reporting disk
>> space in base10 will only lead to discrepancies between the amount of
>> space available and how many files you are dump on it.
>>
>> That stupid IEC standard is at complete odds with the way computers
>> operate. I don't want to have to miscalculate just because tools started
>> following stupidity and gave me numbers that were rounded up or down.
>> Take this MB/Mib nonsense and stuff it. As a system administrator, I am
>> having NONE of it.
>>
>
> Have you read the actual references we've been providing? Would you
> mind providing some of your own if you disagree? This is not just the
> IEC promoting consistent use of the metric system - it is most of the
> relevant standards bodies. The world doesn't care that some system
> admins got used to a bad idea when it was in vogue for a short while
> in the overall history of the metric system. Users buy disks that
> list decimal multiples on the box, and are pissed when the system
> reports it as a smaller number. There are more users who want the
> world to agree on what the prefix "M" means, than sysadmins who want
> to redefine the metric system.
>
Too bad it took over a decade (two?) before someone tried to sort out
that misuse of the metric system. And they still have got nowhere after
a decade too. Looks like the computing world don't care what the rest of
the world thinks. Typical eh?
> E.g.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix#Software
>
> The binary convention is supported by standardization bodies and
> technical organizations such as IEEE, CIPM, NIST, and
> SAE.[4][2][5][58] The new binary prefixes have also been adopted by
> the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC)
> as the harmonization document HD 60027-2:2003-03.[59] This document
> will be adopted as a European standard.[60]
>
Yawn. Please go rap something like the UNIX definition.
> As described elsewhere on that page, with pictures of labels and
> reference, files have been described with both properly labeled
> decimal multiples, and with mislabled binary multiples over time. The
> insanity must stop, and imagining that people will prefer a system
> where you transmit at 1 MB/s for one second and end up with .
>
> Saying that having 8 bits in a byte affects these arguments makes no
> sense to me. I bet most users and consumers don't even know how many
> bits are in a byte, and would see no reason to change what the
> prefixes mean based on it.
>
>
Likewise, just pointing out these bodies makes no sense to me. Get this
into the POSIX standard and then I'd be happy as a fish in water. Except
for the part where I have to talk like a frog. Gribbit.
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